The tortuous twenty-hour work day
consists of traveling on untried land
bound to an unfamiliar continent
fleeing hunger, heat, and human hunting.

A new habitat is established here:
a willowing field with nothing in view.
Time passes. The sun sets on the old world
...closing the perpetual migration.

A farmer peers over his quaint estate,
detecting a prehistoric fossil.
His suspicion of this discovery
surrenders him to a speechless decade.

A neighboring field is excavated
and bones of sizes alike are unveiled.
The farmer finds the skeletons are linked
...stretching the perpetual migration.

Relocated to its last habitat,
the mammoth’s sheer remains stand before me.
My neck locks as I scan the entirety
of the alien towering over.

I consider its story before now
and imagine an alternate lifetime—
prior to the present museum site

...that ends the perpetual migration.