At the room’s east end, behind glass, on a mat woven of khaki reed strips, among a haphazard group of clay and stone artifacts, a finely knapped obsidian spear point rests, black, symmetrical, sharp, as ready for use now as when mammoths strode.
Against the room’s west wall, a section of pine utility pole holds on four wooden crosspieces dozens of insulators, mainly glass, blue, grey, green, clear, a few ceramic, black, white, black and white. Atop the pole a stuffed porcupine squats in profile.
Most often dark, silent, shut, the room harbors stillness, the display case’s stasis, the porcupine’s repose. A raccoon ever seeks to warm its forepaws at an iron cookstove ever cold. Yet reveries haunt the room, remaining distinct in their vistas.
Break an insulator on the concrete floor and knap a shard of glass into an arrowhead. Giant ground sloths forage for leaves, dire wolves range in packs, condors wheel high, all amidst ample scrub and woodlands near mountains with thick snow caps.
Place an insulator on the reception counter to hold a loop of the ethernet cable and boot the laptop. The ocean encroaches inland, chaparral arches the interstate here and there, office towers sustain the touch of time, all under a sky without contrails.
Poetry & Photo: © Robert Savino Oventile 2023