A fossil, preposterous
and common, light
as a dime, as infinity’s
poker chip, a grey
Tylenol-sized disk you can
slip into your pocket
or cup in your palm.
Turn it on end,
you can see where a delicate fish line
ran down its core. Reel it in,
you’ll haul up Ordovician oceans
where they boogied and grew, vertebrae
with frondlike arms and bloomlike heads
asway in the tide that fed them, as the mind
of Wang Wei in the ever-adjusting
wind.
O Chordates, you’ll exclaim
to our distinguished many-membered phylum,
spare a moment to applaud
this alien flowering spine.
O Elvis,
wherever you are,
shake with the snakes that first
shook it.