A slide stained with gentian violet
Projects the tiny fossils that rest
As if in peace in the prismatic glare
They speak of conflicts ancient and unresolved
Take it or leave it they say
Tiny tiny
That residue once a byproduct
Has become the show
With its hoops curly streamers whipcracks
Flames contortions and musical accompaniment
A ghostly city rising on the horizon to the sky
That does not forbid entry
Which nevertheless remains unencouraged
So that to behold the festivities from any inward vantage
A modest act of violence might be required
Little professors bearded and bespectacled
Peer through the arcane exclusive instruments
Measurements like gunsights
In a quest to catalog the variants
Which themselves speak aloud
In tones as forceful as those on the margins
Where excavators unearth the forgotten machinery
Filled with moldy damps and ropy slimes
That cry out in the voice of cadavers
Ropy ropy
If they would only listen
Who are so intent upon registering the quarry
The very terra say of a postage stamp
Or the waxy topography of a fruit
Of which neither would gainsay the legitimacy of the other
Partisans that do not insist upon total victory
Cocktails for example cunning prescriptions
Readily available over the counter
And under the rose
The gentle tincture of a natural process
Wedged into a regular grid
Whence nothing is mandated absolutely
Nor prohibited without exception
Except to take into account
The prefigurements in their unmasterable numbers
To the endlessly antic chromosomes