Son, on the non-existence of the Triceratops

No trilobites, no ammonites, no longer

will I pray to a brontosaurus instead

of the Christian god. I will not admit

it was because he was taller. No titanosaurus,

no longer will I believe in the asteroid, the exile

where the vocal and spry were saved, no

I will not identify with the feathered anchiornis

for his supposed sensitivity, no bones will be thrown

to the circling pterodactyls, I am not one

in the lineage of the extinct. Nothing came

before me. I have no father, though I am my father’s

only son. My goldfish will die without pellets,

but I will not die. I do not belong to the scaled

and floating few. No longer will I stand in the museum,

in the cavity of the tyrant, the terrible one,

and be his heart. I will not be judged for his kills

by cloaked man or meteorite, I will not die

for what is now mountainside. I will no longer

stand complicit behind my mother in fall,

beside the fallen apples, when she says it is too bad

about the apples, I will no longer feel bad,

I will not be remembered as I am, in the garden

with the dog’s bones, weeping, categorizing.

Michelle Brown is a graduate of the University of Victoria Writing program. She currently works and writes abroad.