In tar in a pit
in the ribs of
a tiny dinosaur,
the voice of a
thirty-four year old
man, announcing extinction,
booms. Our daughter wants
to know will we disappear too?
She snuggles and we nurture,
switching off the nature
documentary with its prehistoric
insight into what it will be
my family does next.
The toothless
pterosaur
you used
to feed
keeps crying
for your
cold corn
and sardine
soup.
I spent
the morning
in the side
garden
grinding
insects,
dicing
scallions
and bits of
fresh fish,
yet still
he spits
my sorry
excuse of
a stew into
the dunes.
I fear time
is finding
him growing
thin and
ornery.
It's not
my intent
to make
another
suffer
hunger,
but I must
admit I
love the way
his wings
make wind
when he
takes off
bothered
and empty-
bellied.
Tomorrow
I will tuck
your recipe
book back
under my
mattress and
bring him
a basket
of bread
soaked in
salt water
instead.
I thought
you both
knew
I'm not
much of
a cook.
The croton plant you give me
comes with tiny dinosaurs —
a t-rex. A stegosaurus.
“They make its leaves seem so much
bigger” you say, as if the whole love
in buying it was prehistoric —
this world you want to give me
that had only shown itself in quiet
trips to bone lost-and-founds.
This control you found in
a world where none of the
creatures had deadly teeth.
We watered the plant. Admired it.
Safe for a year before the leaves
dried back into the ground.
It’s become a tradition
for all our new plants. Each time
we control paradise:
We let the dinosaurs
outlive the earth again.