Orphaned oddments crammed 
in university base-
ments, in corridors

of state capitols,
identified by jaundiced 
index cards, I think

about you now—where 
have the curators of new 
collections stashed you?— 

a clutch of geodes
cracked like dragon eggs in mid- 
metamorphosis, 

coins trite from dead hands, 
the two-headed calf floating 
in amniotics 

of formaldehyde.
Where is Doc Holiday’s old 
dentist chair? the lone 

token mummy, sans 
sarcophagus, all unrav- 
elling bandages? 

(On dares, we looked up 
his double-barrelled nose at 
cocked eternity.) 

Is he under wraps
now, x-rayed, with a puffed-up 
provenance, rewound, 
educational?
Curators, where are the lost 
curiosities, 

stranded at random
on Time’s littered littoral? 
Why, we used to muse, 

did this thing, not that,
survive its gone moment—how 
are they filed away?