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John Engman reading
THE BUILDING I LIVE IN IS TIPPING OVER
The archaeologist who digs deep enough
through the rock and rolling tiers of ape man
and ape woman, will find my lowly bones
just as I left them, in rows like a xylophone.
She may play my ribs with her rubber mallet,
reviving a mood from ages ago, the haunted
little tunes of my carbon 14 content.
This is what she will know:
I was a homo sapiens with few employable traits,
not much data for the data base: American male,
biped and carnivore, a blameless five-foot-eight.
Perhaps she'll bring me home in a canvas sack
and stash my remains in a storage vault
as if she's collecting antiques. . .
I may be worth money someday!
My skeleton, the backbone of some new dream!
I doubt that, but imagine how pleased she'll be,
digging through the stream-of-consciousness rock
until she arrives at my flat, and petrified me,
caught in the act of whispering sweet nothings
through the fossil of a keyhole . . .
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