For Taung Child, Lately Eaten by Eagles
What does it mean to be human—:
to exhibit foramen magnum positioning characteristic
of bipedal locomotion; to balance one’s head atop one’s neck
while doing so; to be the first
to draw attention to the source—:
To have new molars just erupting, becoming visible
as baby teeth. To have one’s fontanelles
and sutures knit at healthy rates, allowing
the brain to develop
to healthy size. This is the way one carries
truth as far as truth
may be measured—:
To have one’s young carried off just
as any other species, despite
evidence suggesting superiority
to hyrax, antelope, lizards, crabs,
various rodents, small baboons, etc.—:
To be mourned and later
to be found—: kept
a curiosity for mantles
of the powerful; the distant
and the artless.
Romulus Augustulus
Little one;
you were the last
life spared
in a white-stone
city. Allowed to
live out your
youth &
manhood such
as they were
by pale & broad
usurpers.
The man who
spared you—
struck down
by another
pale & broad
at dinner; his collarbone
cleaved in two.
He had been taken
with your beauty
such as it was;
plucked you
as a thread
from the fraying
tapestry of
your forebears
& set you down
in a castle by the sea
guarded by a magic egg
to live out your youth
& manhood.
He could have left you
to the wolves outside
the white-stone walls;
could have kept
your beauty for himself
to eat.
Love
such as it is
rarer among men
than magic.
Exeter Cathedral Library MS 3501, Leaf 7
In one life I am rider
In one — horse
Light with out question told
that the body will bear
no child
Un couple and articulate
limbs — heart
share hearth sore
use less more or less
there for worth less
Raise new roofs —
hoardhold
wormroad breastbound
spiritheld goldlit
everbody
livelyhood
J.Q.F. is a poet and editor in New York.
