Pleistocene Cradle
Nothing to write home about, really,
these bundles of bark and reed
rocked back and forth
by the current in Bismarck’s
narrow corridor, mangrove and bamboo
stalks whittled down fine
by twenty-five
thousand years worth of trial
and error to this sketchy
outline of a raft as it stretches
out over the ocean,
a delicate film of taut skin.
Stephen Grace is a PhD candidate in the Department of English and Related Literature at the University of York. His poems and reviews have appeared or are forthcoming in The Honest Ulsterman, The Literateur, The Compass, and The High Window.