Their names replay Homer:
Cyclops,  Stentor,  Nereis,
joined to the names of scientists:
jensenii,  darwinii, hutchinsoniana.

Tide by tide, we wade deeper in a fetish of destruction;
Thanatos is in our crooked defended marrow.
With curved fingers, I trace their scalloped
ridges: cockles, clams, coquina.

Eternal, veiled and nacred,
their living flesh will die and die again
and on this tumbled beach, pile into heaps
and mounds, press slowly into continents.

Amphitrite,  Cassandra,  Megalops
will siren, long after their names are lost,
long after we slice open
the clenched muscle of our ferocious history.