It's hard to imagine prehistoric New Jersey.If I hadn't heard about the fossils
behind the Lowe's parking lot, I woulda just assumed there was never a
Garden State of Ammonites.
 
Who can picture that shallow sea, salty and thick,
covering this land of Sunoco stations and pizza joints,
of refinery and rest stops.
 
It's hard to think about the squid's ancestors living their lives,
right there, thirty miles from Newark.
 
I'd like to dig around in the hardened muck, poking through
centuries, uncovering the secrets of the pinna
abruptly stopped in their tracks
by the belching of a crude planet.
I’d like to find the carcasses of the Cretaceous yesterday,
somewhere between the Turnpike and tomorrow.


© by Gabriella Brand.
Used with the author's permission.