Span: Journal of the South Pacific Assoc for Cwlth Lit and Language Studies
Number 36, 1992
Postcolonial Fictions:
Proceedings of the SPACLALS Triennial Conference 1992
Edited by Michèle Drouart

Poem: Flank of Lepidotus

Rosanne Dingli

On this rise
it is hard to credit
lapsed existence of waving seagrasses
weaving currents for newly jawed fishes.
I visualize, with the help of printed postulations
the passage of Pachythrissops
through this sunlit wilderness
once flooded with aqueous profusion
thick with arthropods.
On this rise, where shaded eyes spy
in the distance
cathedral spires
and urban dolmens clad in glass,
it becomes absurd to believe
in the shifting of ammonites
and architecture of corals
coating this hill like
a forest of fans. I find,
with my guarded chisel,
evidence of a lagoon. Black scales,
enameled by time,
shine in light unaltered by distance.
Rows of rhomboidal scales radiate
a fine construction
thrown from the Triassic
on a parabola of chance.
I find the flank of Lepidotus.

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