What Repeats

On these new pages, the oldest lessons 
           score themselves again. Spanish
flu, bubonic plague; the Black Death 
          as a jumble of bodies depicted in
engravings— Leeches and lancets; 
          purgation with smoke, fire, or water. 
Upside-down cadavers with dark tongues.
          You'd think by now we'd have learned 
something from mass graves and thinned 
           populations. In the Cotswolds, remains 
of five mammoths from Neanderthal times
          have been unearthed from a gravel quarry
along with evidence of snails and dung beetles.
          If not disease, then rot and ordinary time
wage their battle. We dust the bones, turn
          their questions over in our hands.