I was instructed to so fear a match

when the lesson came to strike one

I twisted, shrieked, and wept. But

the penniless Annings scraped by

against the raw ocean air—

•

The verteberries, sea lilies, scuttle and thunderstones

had lodged in strata for millennia

above the English Channel and below

the Annings’ dark dank cottage. By the Saw Mill River,

my own parents stratified seeds in their garden

though weeds disallowed them

to seek the light of day ever.

•

Miss She-sells-seashells-on-the-seashore,

after a furious storm, found a flying dragon

in the Lyme Regis sediment.

Often gone all day alone

turbulence was her best companion

revealing where to look for bones.

I found an egg dyed yellow and green.

I found my mother when she’d died—I mean,

when she’d hide.

•

I did not find an Ammon’s horn.

I did find a piece of matzo beneath a tablecloth.

And I found my mother dead to which

a cousin asked, “What does that mean,

‘to find someone dead’? Lackluster? Uncaring?

Without a mirror for her little girl?”

•

Bleeding-tooth and pelican foot,

Venus comb murex, keyhole limpet—

a hobby for some, for the Annings

bought bread, maybe mutton, maybe

The Dissenters’ Theological Magazine.

Still, I wish I could’ve chiseled out a Plesiosaurus—

especially to query Genesis—to discover

something as stupendous as extinction.

•

After a common storm Mr. Anning fell from a ledge,

suffering till he died. Mary’s dog

similarly perished just feet from where she stood.

I wouldn’t want to pry into stone

over the swirling coast that cost so much.

Mary didn’t possess any such choice

and faced rude currents to stay afloat:

•

They say Miss Anning attends Col. Birch

These men of learning have sucked her brains

Richard “Dinosaur” Owen rarely stooped to dirty his hands in the field

Coprolite (fossilized feces) finely illustrated

Mary untangled seaweed from the dead woman’s hair

•

To Darwin’s professor she wrote, [the find looks like] a skeleton with a head like a pair of scissors . . . analogous to nothing. Even so, the geologist paid no attention to her transitional creature.

•

Mary’s a very clever funny Creature

said Dr. Featherstonhaugh as he purchased

the spine of a sea beast she’d found. My aunt

said that shells can be alive.

Some are left-handed, some right. Most

have a door and a foot. Very funny, I thought,

determined next holiday to search low and high.

•

King Frederick visited the Anning’s Fossil Depot

to purchase an ichthyosaur—

the crocodile with flippers, the undulating fish lizard—

was it Mary’s torso? brother Joseph’s skull?

or was the skeleton complete?

Strange how the body is so

undependable except at the last moment.

•

Some baby shells swim about,

others dig into mud flats

or latch onto random stone and stem.

When my own babies settled into silt

I had to rake them out

just as my mother’d coaxed with indulgences.

Mary’s mother at first forbade her