Greenland Mummy (Poetry)

The land’s dry coldness wormed its way inside,
gnawed through death’s soft tissue,
leathered skin to a much harsher texture than
such a short life ever warranted.

No baby blues but empty sockets fringed
with dark redundant lashes,
lips parted, shrivelled, dried along
with his last wail —
that dying protest unrecorded here.

The fur his people wrapped him in
still recognisable as seal’s,
bundled in the company of those
too briefly known —
a clutch of bodies hidden under stones,
consigned to utter stillness, silence, all
that long blank night of frozen years
waiting for decay but chilled too low
and cheated of release
by a climate that preserved
what should have been allowed to decompose
and melt away with snow.

Unearthed, he has become his own small history —
a bone-shell memory
who whispers of a sky he barely saw
and under x-ray tells more than he knew
but less than everything
about his race and offers fewer clues
to why he died so young.

The poignancy invades, infests
with pity, overdue
as sacrilegious hands now treat him gently,
curious but kind.