2 December 2008 | Vol. 8, No. 4

Fossiling

For my husband

Finished as the granite

we're down to our indents


now: pull your hand

from the rock & I'll dust


off the fernish armature

resembling our backs. Hello


—remember? Our broken

toaster chariot towed cans.


How far did the grooves

groove the roads on top


of roads like Costa Rica's

with the curb a mile from the mortar?


Why so much stone here?

How far did we ride our habits


& with what weight of stubbornness?

At least our children shone & grew


to be tall doctors (not rock stars),

got a vista from our counsel, vitamins


from my/our cooking. Where are you?

My hair got short—a poof—to remind


us of the past, of missing things

—that something's left at all. Wait,


that's schmaltz. Return the mane—

a braid could last us a morning.

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About the author:

Lauren Goodwin Slaughter is Assistant Professor of English at The University of Alabama at Birmingham and Fiction Editor for the online journal, DIAGRAM. Her poems have recently appeared in Salt Hill, Crab Orchard Review, Blue Mesa Review, Hayden's Ferry Review, Juked, 5_trope, and also on Verse Daily.

For further reading:

See the complete list of work by Lauren Goodwin Slaughter at 42opus. Browse the contents of 42opus Vol. 8, No. 4, where "Fossiling" ran on December 2, 2008. List other work with these same labels: poetry.

42opus is an online magazine of the literary arts.

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