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When Jay Wright found the shark's jaw
he was 700 feet below the ground,
in the mine's dark ocean

It was black on black,polished as coal
black teeth in the dark
for 300 million years
waiting for Jay Wright's hand
to free them from the rocks

Only the teeth remain,
as though time swallows all malice, all thought
all hearts and bones and terrors
leaving only the hunger behind
only the teeth to wait, scissor-sharp
in the secret and dark places
 four miles down


they dragged it out into the light
and marvelled at the size of it
the doorway-mouth of that leviathan
that had swallowed all light, and life
and stone and darkness