On Finally Understanding That Fossils Are Not Bones
by Pamela Manasco
I mean there's a difference in knowing it and knowing
the difference between bone and fossil is what has gone,
and what remains: erased soft tissue of blood cells & fat,
replaced by minerals which knit the empty vessels
into rock: perhaps pyrite if the bone was luckily buried
in water under a layer of iron sulfides, leaving the replica
brilliant, almost gold. There is even exactly one
green fossilized dinosaur skeleton, formed by resting
in the deep earth far enough from a volcano not
to be destroyed but close to gently warm so when
the vital piece of her bones dissolved, it was heated
to the correct temperature to be replaced by dark crystals
of celadonite. Celadon from the French for sea green,
an old pigment used by the Romans under an object
designed to be gilded, and later for a sure artist's
brush underpainting the canvas in preparation for later
flesh, & how wonderful it is to be wrong about the bones
and underneath, to remind absence is only replacement,
that what we are is perhaps necessarily a plan
for what is coming later, some shining reminder.
Pamela Manasco is a poet and English instructor at Alabama A&M University. She is the recipient of an Alabama State Council on the Arts Poetry Fellowship and the 2024 Stephen Meats Poetry Prize. Her poetry has been published in The Louisville Review, Bear Review, Split Rock Review, and elsewhere. She lives in Madison, Alabama with her family. You can find her on Instagram and Bluesky, and via her website.
