FROM EPOCH TO EON

the fossils live
in a cardboard box
under her bed

dust on the fossils
the soft patina of time
a wet fingertip makes them shine

ammonites and echinoids
are her friends
she hasn't any human friends

500 million years just
a
snip

she scrapes the humans
off the landscape
imagines glaciers out for a stroll

a fossil perched upon
a piano
absorbing the music

the grandfather clock
( each second long as an age )
at odds with the cuckoo clock

its half past
a millennium
or two

the little yellow road
threading itself through the countryside
the patchwork quilt of fields

at the end of the road
the moon waiting patiently
for her to catch up