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.

Times I’ve pretended to be lost.

1

My mother would walk Billy in the frog stroller

with me in her orbit. I asked her “Can I lead the way home?”

just to take the first wrong turn that I could

in the hopes that the walk could be longer

and that we might end up down a street

that unfurled into a gravel dead end.

Maybe there would be a honey suckle bush

waiting.

2

From a young age I had grown to consider supermarkets

as only a different play ground. Billy and I stole

the sliced cheese and nibbled on the corners

while hiding under racks of clearance bathrobes.

We were spies. We plucked fruit from the jungle–

crunched coffee beans under our feet in the aisles.

I loved it when they summoned my mother

over the intercom and I’d make believe that I had been scared

only to tell my mom as I lay on the bottom rack of the

shopping cart “I wanted to hear them say my name.”

She said, “Don’t do that again.”

3

In the woods by the creek Billy and I passed the brick house

that we convinced ourselves was haunted.

We’d stay the chain swaying from the ceiling

was used to hang someone. It was heavy dusk–

cold enough to puff our breath like dragons.

I said, “I don’t know which way is out

all the trees look the same.”

We rationed our oats and honey nature valley bars

until Billy started to cry.

I got up from the mildew log.

We were home in twenty-minutes.

4

I thought I was eighteen yesterday.

I thought I was twelve. I thought I was nine.

I thought I was seven.

I’m not sure how old I am or if it even matters.

I wanted to walk alone in New York City

and pretend.

I both wanted to walk

like I knew where I was going and get lost

at the same time.

I wanted to end up somewhere I’d never been

but enter the cafe like I was a regular who

the men in canvas aprons behind the counter

somehow neglected to remember.

Maybe I was a poet there– a salsa dancer

a vegan food truck chef taking a day

off to meet a boy she met in line

at the French bakery.

If someone would have asked my name

I imagined I would still would tell them that I was

“Sarah” because to them “Sarah”

could still be the poet or the salsa dancer

or the vegan food truck chef

not even sure if she remembered

the boy’s last name.

I want to get lost more

and find my way back to the home

tangled in my name

and in my notebook.

 

A year scrawls itself behind me

in chalk and in sharpie.

I see myself from the year before

through a terrarium wall.

I put my face to the glass and smudge it.

My eyes blink like a spotted geko–

a horned lizard

under the artificial comfort

of the heat lamp.

I eat the same bagged crickets

crunchy like my dead scales.

She is reptilian.

She is cold skin.

I think of her as the captured

exotic– she dances for me.

I still have the heat lamp.

I still eat the crickets.

I still have cold skin.

Oh everyone is waiting for a midnight

you know?

Even though all

we’ve ever been is a lovely

stack of Matryoshka dolls

painting on a new face

only to stand back and

see that it’s the same

but still

stunning

visage.