Mason Jars
They’re hip these days,
retro in an age of plastic,
pre-packaged crap
that leaks and unravels,
leaving soppy messes
on the well-swept floor.

My niece used them
as beer and wine glasses
at her farm to-table
wedding, lids carefully
collected and stowed
away—

They are votive holders
and vases, emanating
light across dining tables,
terraces, night-time
walkways to the beach.

I keep mine resting
neatly on the shelves
below my shoulder
blades, stacked just inside
my rib cage,
where they hold
everything that would
otherwise weep.

Exhibit
I wonder if
the last dinosaur
knew—

what the natural
history museum
will look like
when the exhibit
on human life
opens,
and who
the clay reconstructions
of us
will be
staring back,
vacant,
mesmerized
beyond
sight—

I wonder
where the continents
were,
and how big
the sky,
how bright
without
cabled darkness—
without
punctured
souls below.

I wonder whether
the last mammoth knew
what
the inevitable
tombstone
will read
when it buries
the millions,
stone-skinned
figures
in relentless glass.

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Genevieve Creedon is a poet, scholar, and non-fiction writer. She is a graduate of the Stonecoast MFA Program at the University of Southern Maine, and she earned her PhD in Comparative Literature at the University of Michigan. She teaches writing and directs the Writing Center at Princeton University.