Backyard Jurassic
Backyard Jurassic
After the Big Bang took the galaxy by surprise
but before Fraggle Rock and our spaghetti dinner,
we form makeshift huts out of rocks from the garden,
beds of mulch, roof of twigs—
home of the plastic brontosaurus. We traded them
for our big wheels at the edge of the neighbor’s sandbox.
The dinosaurs went to work—
digging at roots under the maple tree,
knocking the heads off of tulips,
growling at the neighbor’s dog,
stomping up earthworm applesauce
and feeding it to the mouthy two-year-old
even though Dad told them not to.
Squeezed between our dirt-tattooed palms,
the dinosaurs dive into summer’s murky footprints,
freckling the day’s outfit with mud.
Chipped eyes stare up at us
while we laugh at the dinosaurs’ buoyancy
and float in our own murk—
when we believed their extinction came from a garage sale
and that all earth’s dinosaurs were pink.
Rooming With Your Bones
When they asked at the post office what you wanted
with a skeleton, you said you were studying
the human form. When they said, What?
The girlfriend’s not enough? you laughed,
and now request that I take care of it
while you finish your semester in Bordeaux.
The skeleton is real,
you tell me, and once belonged to a man,
so I should show some respect.
I don’t believe you, and throw pistachios at his eye sockets
when I’m on the phone or bored.
During the day,
I slide my socks over his ribs,
drape my bras over his shoulders,
and thread necklaces through his ears.
I try to gag him with a pair of my underwear,
but dislodge his jaw instead
and spend most of my weekend plugging his teeth back in.
But his shadows deepen at night,
and the unhinged skull glows
from the street light outside my window.
The hairs on my neck prick up
when he rattles from the 2 AM train.
I wheel him from one room of the apartment to the next
the bones clacking like clumsy chopsticks
as I try to banish him from my peripheral vision.
I threw a party in your absence
where the guests convinced me
the bones were a sure sign
that you’d taken another lover.
I pull the Ouija board out from under my bed
and wipe off its dust veil.
We set his jaw on the table
shaking his loose teeth
in our cupped palms
before flinging them across the table like dice.
We dot the corners of the counter top with candles
then turn off the lights.
