When The Earth Almost Died

Published by The Delmarva Review, November, 2017

A mile wide crater dug into the ground,
doing the dinosaurs in.

A few surviving pockets—secret canyons
from as far away as Antarctica—

allowed the paleontologist to dream
of a botanical landscape

with ancient secrets guarded by crocodiles.
So much and so little has changed

since the remolding of her center,
and like the fossilized remains

of Australia’s megafauna-trampled-land,
each of her skeletal alterations is a link.

She knows now he can no longer
make her compliant. Next time

he threatens the end of the world
or insists, “don’t involve me,”

she’ll react with “organisms change
in geological strata, there are birds

with brighter plumage,
and you’ve overreached.”

She arches her body, her back
briefly emerging above water.

Like early whales, she’s a mammal
performing a land-to-sea transition,

an adaptive zone, a distinct phase
of propelling deeper.