SONG OF THE TRILOBITE

Long before Pliocene’s

celebration

of the spine,

when silver birch leaves

flickered

like tiny salmon

and grebes first hinted

at lunacy,

I paddled mud banks

ajell with bacterial slime,

hard pressed

to keep body and soul together.

But it wasn’t that I

hauled genetic cargo

from the sea.

I merely bedded

the muzzy swamplands

of New York,

coining armor plate,

jointed leg,

tough, chitinous jaw

—anything to beat

extinction’s warrant.

Still, the bone tumblers

ogle my chalky remains,

this herringbone shell

—wonderwork

risen out of panic.

They allude to the crab,

spider, millipede,

say adaptive radiation

about a common theme.

As if that explained

the papery organs within,

the crisis

that fed my opportunity.