I buried them in a shallow grave

outside the sunroom where their cage hung

rain washed their bones into a deep earth cellar

Where I descend by night with my lone candle

to find them fixed in strata, yet not fixed

scaled claws striking Jurassic dragonflies



My shadow flickers and dissolves

as I sit at the sunroom desk

Tiny scaled claws strike my head

Pinioned dervishes scold:

My suit of black and white feathers

my smooth hands and my scientist's smirk

my two-finger typing and opposable thumbs

my missing wings and manifesting teeth



We dinosaurs live on, incantations of ancestral rebirth

templates used, discarded, and used again

as our sphere cycles on, now warming, now cooling

the uniforms change, the costumes evolve

but the sudden-death scrimmage is eternal.