BARONSTOWN WEST MAN
200-400 AD, co. Kildare
in the National Gallery in Dublin
Baronstown Man raises his hand
in the glass tomb
and begins to speak –
A dried toe on his small curled foot
curls down to draw a boundary line in dirt
or scratch an itching arch or slender calf
sting of bee or bite of ant
The tender little hammer-toe bent under taut
Ribbed dry mushroom stalk
mouth flap gap-open
from the central trunk
Fat shitake hipbone wings silent
in their pockets
The leather body bag of bones
breathes
his ginger hair and stubble skullcap syntax-fixed
phrasing spent and flattened where it landed
in years of acid peat and liquid
pressing down
Baronstown Man begins to speak –
but I can’t understand his language