← v9n2, Fall 2010
Poetry · Volume 9, Number 2

Ochre x

Unzip the body bag; then rustle through

A second layer of heavy plastic. Pull

It down to unwrap the face: a Russian doll

With duct-taped eyes,

mouth a puckered o,

Hawk nose, shaved head paisley-ed with contusion.

Twist it slightly for a better angle.

Now we’re talking Smile Sabrina Smile.

& the latex glove, hovering thumbs up—the punctum

Arranging everything, like Mousterian tools

In a test trench.

Shanidar cave: a Neanderthal male,

Half-blind with a withered arm, impossibly old

At forty, receives his grave-goods—armloads

Of burdock, cornflower, hollyhock.

                                                      & a cache of flints

For the perilous & beflowered afterlife.