but when we needed air
we borrowed lungs
from the fan-finned Bachir
of the Nile reeds
and while we were there,
we plucked from its heart
the vital conus arteriosus
to move our own blood.
We didn’t even ask—when we
wanted to hunt—we just took
the Bachir’s fluid-filled synovial joints
for our limbs and fingers
and etched into cave walls
buffalo, deer, and rudimentary maps
of the night sky (yet, not a single
river fish). Maybe it’s our brain, this jelly
in a bone jar, that operates
in terms of debts
to be paid. It was hundreds
of synovial hands
that carved the animal kingdom
into the pillars of Gobekli Tepe,
aligned them to a forgotten
zodiac of stars.
And it was hundreds more
that dug them out
of the Anatolian dirt
ten thousand years after
the Younger Dryas impact
froze the world.
Upon the Vulture Stone
flies its namesake,
a fossil brush reveals
the bald head, recognizable
even after an epoch of silence.
Beneath the carrion eater
a scorpion crawls like a severed claw
and below that, a tiny headless
human, one arm raise, missing
its hand. It is hypothesized
that the circle above the vulture’s wing
represents the impact of
a comet, a livid amalgamation
of leftovers that escaped
the violence of solar system’s
foundation; the builders
must have seen it then,
a second moon approaching:
everything that was of such little
consequence, now curled
into a fist.
Internationally published, Rocco de Giacomo’s Casting Out was released in 2023.
Questions and Answers
As a published writer, what are your tips or words of motivation for the aspiring poet?
Set aside time to write every day. Be your biggest critic. Remember that if you have thought of a great idea, thousands of other artists have thought of the same thing. So edit as much as you can, and always look for new angles. Submit every month to literary journals. Remember that every rejection brings you closer to a publication.
What did you find particularly challenging in writing this poem?
The challenge was connecting how humans “borrowed” body parts from the Bachir fish to events around the Younger Dryer Impact and make it compelling for the reader.