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Jungle sunrise

One Poem by Clara Trippe

Terrain.org 14th Annual Contest in Poetry Finalist

Prehistoric Love Story

The soil will grow richer after we die. Our unseeing faces will collapse
and split with new growth,
welcome the next apex to begin the process of renaming—
painting our imagined bodies in feathers and scales.

They will never recreate us, no matter how close they hold our bones,
date our carbon with desperation.
There is no science to discover how our stomachs rumbled while we stayed in bed.

Those long mornings we were silent and studied the early light
as it settled in the valleys of one another’s face—
those hours burn with us,
shoot out to sky
and live on as only smoke,
settle down to ash.

 

  

  

Clara TrippeClara Trippe (she/they) is a Midwest poet who grew up on occupied Ojibwe land. They are a lover of queer theory and fresh water. More of her work is featured in The Rumpus, Heavy Feather Review, and The Normal School. You can find them on Instagram and X at @mid_west_dad.

Header photo by 12019, courtesy Pixabay.