Erin is a current USask health sciences student and Bachelor of Science graduate in biochemistry. Much of Erin’s work examines the richness of the human experience under a lens of scientific imagery. In “Carbon Date Me?” Erin integrates foundational geological concepts with a contemplation of the relationship between past devotions and the present self.
Carbon Date Me?
Endearment, unweathered
adhere to this restless
earth pleasured by wiry
creatures rejoicing life.
You shall be buried by
more feeling — some grieving,
some yearning. But listen,
the winds of erasure
have not yet repressed you.
Future’s sediment dusts
your body, so you shall
become stratum in me;
a streamlet of something
gleaming with memory —
perhaps artifact tools
of lover’s inventions,
the earliest relics.
Call it not entombment
but embrace, and I shall
point to you here, layered
around my beating core.
This piece is part of the in medias res March 2021 “Love” Issue. You can read the full issue under the tag “March 2021.”
Image by Ashlynn HIll.