Jayne Fenton Keane
Message
from the Mouth of a Fossil
Learning to breathe in water
is an important skill
to develop before you drown
Can you feel the flutter at the sides of your neck?
Feel the tiny scars splash open into bright pink signals
as the oxygen slips in? Holding archaeological origins
in the translucent tides of your mouth, you breed pearls
around the itch of unanswered questions. Moonlight catches
the gentle sway of your caudal fin. In the clear rays cutting
through the surface of Mediterranean blue, a school of anchovy
scatter like sea-lightning and in a shock of legs thrashing
you vanish into an amphibious dream of footprints shaped by landing.
Bio:
Jayne Fenton Keane is the author of two poetry books, Torn (Plateau Press, 2000) and Ophelia's Codpiece (Post Pressed, 2002), with another due for release in 2003. Please visit JFK’s award winning multi-media website The Stalking Tongue Book II; Slamming The Sonnet at www.poetinresidence.com.
