X-Ray
 
 A silver phosphorescence
rising out of the gloom
of the Atlantic trench –
 
fish-bones, a glimpse
caught in a camera-flash
of some long extinct creature,
a plesiosaur
with glowing teeth.
 
An intimacy
with a self I do not know:
call him Jolly Roger,
the bone-man –
 
a carving buried deep
in a prehistoric mound
and exhumed for the first time,
 
painted skeletons lit
momentarily as they dance
around a pit of embers.
 
Or it might be brushstrokes
illuminated on a cave wall
after five thousand years
hidden in the spine –
 
this archaeology
performed by chisels
of starlight.

Mark Rutter

If you have any comments on this poem, Mark Rutter  would be pleased to hear from you.