Newly Modelled Bust
from a Denisovian Fossil
So glad you
finally unlocked my image, but not my name:
No one
called me Denise or said my folk were Denisovians;
But if that
is what you want, I have no objections—
You could
not speak the sounds my parents made. Our story
Has no words
like yours, but we had tales to tell
In whispers
in the evening before we fell asleep.
No, I
wouldn’t say our life was hard: it was what it was.
We found our
food, we sipped the water in the stream,
We watched
for hunting beasts, we groomed each other.
Your
questions often make no sense to me. What dreams
Are I do not
know, nor hopes for tomorrow, and memories
Are more
like familiar tastes and smells that linger.
It is a
mystery to me how the sounds you make can tickle
The inside
of my head, as though a butterfly crept in.
Until you
made this mould, I never saw my face,
All round
and sad, yet full of wonder—for what
Can I tell
you of my life so long ago, and those
I loved and
nurtured me? You have been kind,
Perhaps more
curious than gentle, to bring me here.
Will I ever
go back to be with my own kind? But, what?
I am only a
head and neck; you never built
My body. Is
this my fate, to be a bust
And sit here
on a platter in your time
Where
strangers stare and mimic my fears?
But if you
crush the clay, what will be left
Of me,
awakened but not truly living,
A shadow of
someone’s speculations,
A gene
transcription. Now I feel your tears,
Warm and
bitter, and your helplessness.
