Excavation
Curled on her side,
freed from the weight of earth,
her skull a creamy eggshell.
Ribs cage nothing, for the bird has flown
this eighteen hundred years and more.
I’m sorry that they dug her up,
picking at her bones
with toothbrushes, gushing into microphones.
Better to have left her,
snug in the packed dark, unknown
but suspected.
She could have whispered then,
hatched her thoughts within our skulls.
Bones are too explicit in the sunlight,
too easily explained. Leave her now.
Fill the pit.
Ian Stuart is a writer/storyteller in York, where he has lived for twenty years. His poetry has been published by Pennine Platform, Sarasvarti ,Mycor and Selwith Station. He had a collection “Quantum Theory for Cats” published by Valley Press. https://oddlinessinspades.wordpress.com
atriumpoetry.com 