SHARON BERG

★ ★ ★ ★

POETRY

Image by Ashleigh Joy

Fossils

On our first visit to the beach, you wade out to chest deep water,
looking down, searching. Bending again and again,
you are an archaeologist, bringing up fossils in stone, 
explaining (though I knew) fossils are made when mud hardens
around an impression in mud, or specific minerals collect
to replace buried flesh. You carried a multitude in your hand, 
showed them to me, naming each type: petrified, molded,
trace footprints, and carbon film.

On our last visit to the beach, you hand me a round flat stone, 
saying it’s a drink coaster, causing me to hunt for its partner.
That time, I collected pebbles, a series of fossils 
from the Quaternary, Tertiary, and Cretaceous Periods. 
That was just before you left. I carried them back to the house 
in a paper cup that sits on my desk now. I’ve never looked at 
stones the way I do since you taught me to see ancient life 
mineralised, as fossils are.

Now those stones take me back to beach, causing me 
to wonder about the impressions you have left behind, 
the way the space that held your body now remains empty. 
Our interactions through email, text, and phone calls are
frustrating, different from those we have one on one.
Away from me, the emptiness is filled by your voice 
alone, and you are the only one talking.