The Beast Between the Marble and the Heap, Or: The Mammoth    Between the marble wall of City Hall   and the slow‑rotting heap   of broken crockery and dusty old books —   the beast stirred.     To think it once tore open the earth   with its tusks,   raising mountains,   or guarding the spirits of the underworld.     Now its fur rotted to a brittle husk —   the mammoth   preserved without reason —   the mammoth.     Among the first of God’s works,   it had been among us from