The Evolutionary Record

A hand can shape itself into a form
evolved for picking insects and apples

yet by the shadowed light of a fire
a woman's hand picked up a half bent reed

drove it into a mass of wet clay
marking the simple first

exchange of five of her husband's brown
goats for round tokens

leaving the other side of the slab
free to write the blood of her gender

On the Sanctuary of Artemis Dying

In a place like St. John's Monastery
the wall she sees scales fifteen meters
juts out like a broken nose
scoured by the idled sight

of innocents incised in blackened
rededos, a flat faced John
forehead marked, his brother
James skin broken, drawn.

And the floor, remembered from a pagan
temple, marbled slabs made numb,
aged, for a time and half a time
seemingly 2000 years or more

as endless rows have come and given
will, gray-fashioned until not
one more footfall could be taken
whether by moon or under blood.

Invisible, she stares, reflected
bowing to the sons of thunder
who unaware, not caring
have crushed the back of Artemis.

published in ONTHEBUS, # 19/20 2005

Events

We gather at the mouth of the lake
to discourse upon science
(and not the parenthetical losses in our lives)

I present evidence of transient events
recorded intracellularly from the motor cortex
of a laboratory monkey reaching for a cookie pellet.
His task is complex.
He must open the drawer with his left hand
and extract the morsel with his right.

My colleagues ask probing questions
about the strength of the neural activity
and the robustness of the response.
No one asks about the death of my lover
or why the lake turns sparkling blue
early in the morning
just as the sun finds
the row of pollard cypresses
along the water's edge,
their naked branches entangled
like axon fibers or stunted arms
reaching out for
help

published in ONTHEBUS, #15/16 1999

© 2005 Thea Iberall