Exogyra texana

E. D. Watson

November 4, 2022

Little mollusks, ghosts in the stone, 

little coiled ones, you and your kind 

once ruled this land; now I hold what’s left 

of your kingdom: some shells in matrix. 

Sixty-five million years ago, my backyard 

was a shallow sea; before words were sounds, 

you excreted and inhabited them. 

The brine was keener then, the world wet 

and quiet as an embryo. Who could have guessed 

the asteroid would come and the dinosaurs 

would go? Who could have known they’d take you 

with them: you, who’d lived so long, 

and well? But you say, It has happened before; 

it will happen again. I don’t want to believe you

but you are proof of what you warn, surfaced

beside the driveway after a hard rain: old sea floor, 

chunk of the Cretaceous, scrawled with a message 

in calligraphic loops of Exogyra, prophecy 

in a long dead language.

E. D. Watson is a poet, yoga instructor, and library clerk in San Marcos, Texas. Her work has been published by Ms., Rattle, Narrative, and others. When she's not writing, she teaches mindful movement and poetry for wellness, and helps to produce When the River Speaks, a community poetry and art zine published out of the San Marcos Public Library.