Carbon-14 by Jay Jarboe (17, Kansas)

Fossils, 
Ancient records of once-cradled bone, 
A mineral memory deposit transposed, 
Had I formed such a sacrificial stone, 
Or the wild animals put to the altar? 

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Their spirits forged carbon spots,
Carved lines into skin and rock, 
Rewrite the books, strike old thoughts,
Of the poachers turned archeologists.

My excommunicated experts,
Where “biological kin” isn’t clinical enough, 
Ever doubtful of their harm- 
My body proof of their bluff, 
They failed to suffice the urge in their guts, 
So I watched broken animals pile up, 
As my expert/poachers simply shrugged.
 
Bits of myself wandered, I hardened, 
An unliving stone might remain unharmed, 
As innocence was lost to negligence, 
I wept at the blood-stained rock,
And recorded the loss of it all. 

A fossil, 
Tool of the past, 
Decaying isotopes to prove what once transpassed, 
Sacred bones far from forgotten, 
I must mourn, stand as proof, of the life they had.