Size / / /

I read about a Chinese scientist who found a mountain

just bursting with impressions

and indentations of things

that lived before there were bones.

I saw a drawing of an armored sea creature

three feet long, multi-legged,

mouth full of row on row of jagged plates.

A first predator, first nightmare, first symptom of madness.

Our ancestor was born in that same era,

in that same hot ocean;

a slippery little wormy thing

with the beginnings of a spine.




Jeff Jeppesen is an IT professional and writer living in Houston, Texas. His work has previously appeared in Potpourri, Strange Horizons, Everyday Weirdness, Everyday Poets, and The Houston Literary Review. He has work soon to appear in Illumen.
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25 Mar 2024

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