We Invented Terror

It’s a character’s weak boast

By way of justification

Deep in a piece of fiction,

Justifying standing up

To terrorists with terror,

A local boast, local conflict.

But it looks like a fossil

To us, like the way fossils

Glimmer briefly on the shore

Of a stony strand, exposed

By the tides. Unrecognized,

The tides will take them away—

All that time sitting in stone

Since they were laid down in mud—

Eroded in a few days

Unless someone carefully

Digs them out of that context,

Pries them loose and cleans them well

So that they can stand alone.

We invented terror. Yes. Yes,

That’s your species. Yes, you did.