in the backyard of our lives i bought a shiny grille 

i knew we didn't need the grille but i wanted
to show everyone that we would survive the next meteor. 
that we weren't dead yet. 
i painted pictures of dinosaurs
on the side of the house. 
the grille was the size of the coffin we used
to bury our father's hands when the machines
cut them off the last time.
usually, we are regenerating people
but something went wrong. 
chain & conveyor belt. he came home  
with his hands inside a takeout bag. 
we helped him. he said, "if only we had a grille."
we did not know what he meant 
& worried that he meant he wanted us
to consume them. for most of us, our
limbs grow back though we always feel
like something has been lost. i thought maybe
i would invite neighbors over to feast 
around the grille. we could make hamburgers
& not talk about loss. 
we knocked on the neighbors' doors
& found the houses empty. they left a lot.
photographs & canned corn. we gathered them up.
our father asked us to feed him. we started
with the photographs. rolled them. chewed them
like sinew. we ate with our father. 
he told us how to start the grille up.
handfuls of coal. the dinosaurs twitched,
sensing their ancient fires. i just wanted
to make a hearth in the middle 
of our little immortality. i asked our father
why it is that we want to live for forever.
he did not know. he told us to get more coal.
to cook as much as we could find. 
i cooked his hands. i cooked the oak tree. 
the grille shined & shined. 
almost a gleaming new car. not a getaway 
but a return device. the portal back
to the throat. a tail of smoke 
thrown into the clouds like an escape.