Stratigraphy
Take what’s unearthed—copper, bone
needle, silver coins—as evidence of continuous
human presence. Such puzzling
detritus and handiwork: this bronze
ear pick etched with fine cross-hatch or that
female figurine of painted clay, “meaning
unknown,” striped and small enough
a child’s hand could enclose it. They look as if
laid aside yesterday, tokens of commerce
or devotion. Bronze stem of a mirror,
pottery shards which conceal a partial
story: the hands of Paris presenting the apple
to Aphrodite. Another unknown woman
flanks the goddess, but only her feet
and robes remain. How much is unrecoverable,
how much surmised. Dig until you find
a comb, further down an amphora’s handle,
a seal. Here’s sign of fire, here
erosion, here time
piling its jewels and ash, spreading
its quilts over the dead.
Copyright © 2014 by Claire McQuerry. “Stratigraphy” originally appeared in Steel Toe Review. Reprinted with permission of the author.