Accumulation

Two months after she left
we drove to a cliff by the highway

and broke rocks open
at the shaded table.

A volunteer showed us
how to pry the rocks apart

like books,
like a baby does to books,

exposing one protected moment in time
or another, you choose,

50 million year old carbon blackening
midair. Inside one a fish scale. A reed,

a mosquito fern, a flush of debris,
a man at the end who said what it all was.

Megan Snyder-Camp is the author of three books of poetry, including Wintering (Tupelo, 2016) and The Gunnywolf (Bear Star, 2016). She is the recipient of grants and fellowships from Bread Loaf, 4Culture Foundation, Djerassi, and the HJ Andrews Experimental Forest. She lives in Seattle.