UNCOVERING THE MINE SHAFT
by accident
we stumbled upon the last breath
and knelt down
our one good ear tight against its lips
and rotted teeth
we could not tell
if it was night or the eclipsing sun
but from somewhere deep within its wound
we heard drums
and a circle of clapping bones closing in
again the woolly mammoth being roused
from its black slumbering dust
crude figures of men with sticks
and mud-sling barrows
illumined the cankerous mouth
—Craig Czury
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from GOD’S SHINY GLASS EYE, FootHills Publishing. 2005,
http://foothillspublishing.com/pre-2005/id39.htm