Fossil Gatherer

Propping up rusty railings by the shore – listening -
between eyelashes I saw flapping, it sounded like applause.

A skeletal osprey limped along cracked hot granite,

eyeing a red crab drowning in sunshine.

The crab was crunched — then wriggled.
Oscillating sine waves tickled the air,

a spider drowned in a bucket

next to my foot – squealing

Dirty fingernails scraped the earth
seeking out ancient dead: their stone-shadows

now ghostly skeletal images –

crushed in time and spatial vectors,
to emit crackling and spitting messages:

reminiscent of Italian and Chinese Art – in a white room.
With a high-brow air, but whining,
like a London Tube train,

late at night

then rubber-necking at the hard platform’s lip.
I watched litter swirling, between the tracks,
sniffed the warm rubber,

and flinched at metallic noises.