Dinosaur bones and vertebrae of verbs.

 

I don’t think the Allosaurus poised

in the Museum of Natural History

ever wrote poetry–

If he did I think that he would

be offended by how small children

in red canvas shoes only like him

for his teeth and maybe because he’s a

meat eater.

I wonder if it’s even really him

standing there– his bones are stone

memories of steps and crinkles

of a beast soil has forgotten.

Sediments blinked over him–

shut eye lids of sleep.

I think he wrote

radical free verse– not like a beat poet–

He’d write the type of poetry that’s

scattered all over the page in the shape

of an apple or a palm tree.

He wouldn’t take himself too seriously

but he he would move his lips

when he read a poem to himself.

He would wish he could write words

on his bones so that they could be fossilized too.

He wouldn’t want to write a sonnet–

he’d leave that to the Apatosaurus.

I think if tiny people ever piece me together

that I might have written enough–

eaten enough words so that they could all see

them in the stone silhouettes of my bones.

Maybe they’d piece me together wrong

and use my pinkies as horns–

at least they would see that I had written

something other than bones.