Archive

First submitted to the APECS Polar Poetry Contest 2021

Cryogenic pages inscribed with

text of molecules, the slurred slush words

a record of ancient winters—

each leaf a year of snowfall, sintering

into homogeneity, someday

a solid mass of ice.

Together, these archives

comprise a library for our reading;

translators’ borrowed tools in blue-gloved hands

revealing our planet’s history,

frostbite like paper cuts on fingertips.

Sea spray and scattered dust, pressed between

the leaves like blossoms from another spring,

unveiled as we read—children eager

to learn the secrets of the final page.