Mummy Exhibit

Jake says it’s one turtle on the next one’s back,
all the way down. Near bottom are the skulls
wrapped and half-wrapped, turned to stone,
ribs turned up like ship-ribs. Grins that say
friends forever, whether you like it or not.
Babies’ large heads flattened from eons of rest.
The long bodies of adults, leather on bone,
eyes empty, the bald truth picked out, scanned,
carbon-dated. Jake likes the one in the sarcophagus—
well, not in, but suspended on glass between
its carved halves, a Russian nesting doll ready
to fit. It’s a fine afternoon, all of us spinning
on the planet, Jake growing, me crumbling,
moving among mummies held between then
and now. You can almost touch bottom, you stand
rapt for something more, something inside
the inside that surely must correspond to
what’s too far up to see, but thank God is holding
very still and has not toppled everything, yet.