The Xystridura stares with empty eyes in every direction.
His special spine runs down between his eyes and cushions his vision out.

Later fossils show soft hairs that barely brushed by intruders as they wisped by on rocks behind him, unbothered, free.  

Your question is like bright flickering light against this dark room's walls.
The candle shines on half my face and reveals the rest of a secret.
Its final words trail off
before you reach for them.
They leave you

grasping, grabbing at the tail
                of pure lightning.
 

Once, you were prehistoric, full of dark thirst for newness,
full of that urging ache to crawl. Only
I saw you as you crept quietly across this desertscape.
Soft mud hardened at the touch of your tracks.

I hold you now: a matted footprint in my palm.

Your specimen is evidence of me.
My microscope here is a mirror; it is clear glass reflecting back as I squint through its lens.



 

Soft mud hardens with tracks that one bird once formed. Only
I imagine him now, creeping quietly across a desertscape.
He is so full of that dark thirst for newness, that aching urge to crawl.

It's the bird that we discover now, forgetting what came before; we hold him in our palms as we hold each matted footprint.

Each specimen is evidence of its observer. My microscope is a mirror, clear glass that reflects back as I try to look through its lens.

 

Children lie still in dreams as warm as Christmas fire and imagine all the beauty of the world before them.
There is one child who imagines trees waking up and walking the streets like ancient dinosaurs. Each night, he watches them stamp pavement with uprooted trunks, their leaves gnashing and gnawing at night. This motion is majestic for him; real but distant.
Although he knows it exists only in his mind, the boy never forgets what it means that this happens.

 

After all the parents have gone to bed and before the animals have woken in their place, before night-time shower sounds have become coyote sounds, each light switches off down this street and wipes out  every house on the block. With them, all time goes out and imagination comes alive. Ancient t-rex creatures alive in the tree's aging skin wake up and the trees' necks begin to move slightly, delicately reaching branch ends out to other branch ends on the neighbour's yard.

Stretch your arms out overhead, there are canopies of trees here.
One, huge and dinosaur-skinned, reaches its branches up to the pink city sky.

Its leaves are like fingerprints against a pure mist sky, pale purple and spotted with clouds. Its branches hang down like dinosaurs necks over this suburban street packed with sleeping cars.
 
Between the foot of your car and the moon's first light, their branches fall, rounded, soft.

 

It's late-night on our street and all the parents have gone upstairs to bed. Only children lie awake in their warm cozy comforters and dream of yesterday and tomorrow. The cats drool on carpets. Cars sit snugly in their spots, waiting.

In this majestic night-time forest, there is a backlit crowd of trees and they hang down their necks like dinosaurs. Their many tangled arms reach into night's light, relentless, searching.  

 

In a dark room, you stand up knowing, unafraid, your questions like a bright flickering light. This candlelight shines on half your face and reveals the rest of a secret. Its final words trail off before you reach for them—grasping, grabbing at the tail of pure lightning.

 

There's these plastic holders she keeps under all her guest's drinks to keep tabs on them.
No one ever sees her glide across the room and swing her glass around until hers falls out from underneath, unnoticed.

 

This feeling is an answer, like windows opening and closing, warm wind hitting her shoulders.

Without saying a word, she pushes her sweater back up her shoulder now when he turns away.

 

Midnight moonlight draws a vine down the centre of her face. She moves slow, boots strapped snugly and rubber crunching roots below her.

She moves, but no one knows she's here. No one knows that each breath breathes in full forest, holds it there before unleashing.

 

There's this bird she likes to watch each night:

He rests his bony claws on the branch of an old oak tree. He will grab the thick branch solidly with one claw as he reaches the other to his face, perfectly balanced. This is how he washes his face, slowly and carefully.
This is how he moves: dinosaur-like, ancient, raw.

 

When no one is looking, after a day's dark escape, she comes out to her backyard forest, headlamp strapped on. She smoothes down each leaf's upturned worry, each flower's sagging grace.

The thorns don't bother her then—she's fed by some other life-blood, some other force. It's dark and pure as wet, red dirt.

 

A tree, huge and dinosaur-skinned, reaches its branches up to the pink city sky.

Its leaves are like fingerprints against a pure mist sky, pale purple and spotted with clouds. Its branches hang down like dinosaurs necks over this suburban street packed with sleeping cars.
 
A streetlight, some far-off buildings, light up the mossy bark as it gently curls off the edge.

 

You're out in the garden with the headlamp on, picking zucchinis in the dark. Hanging shirts and rose buds bloom beside you.