The Age of Dinosaurs

There are, of course, theories

about the wide-eyed, drop-jawed

fascination children have for them,

about how, before he's learned

his own phone number or address,

a five-year-old can carry

like a few small stones

the Latin tonnage of those names,

the prefixes and preferences

for leaf or meat.

My son recites the syllables

I stumble over now,

sets up figures as I did

years ago in his prehistory.

Here is the green ski slope

of a brontosaur's back,

there a triceratops in full

gladiator gear. From the arm

of a chair a pterodactyl

surveys the dark primeval carpet.

Each has disappeared from time

to time, excavated finally

from beneath a cabinet

or the sofa cushions, only

to be buried again among its kind

in the deep toy chest,

the closed lid snug as earth.

The next time they're brought out

to roam the living room

another bone's been found

somewhere, a tooth or fragment

of an eggshell dusted off,

brushing away some long-held notion

about their life-span

or intelligence, warm blood

or cold. On the floor

they face off as if debating

the latest find, what part

of which one of them

has been discovered this time.

Or else they stand abreast

in one long row, side

by scaly side, waiting to fall

like dominoes, my son's

tossed tennis ball a neon yellow

asteroid, his shadow a dark cloud

when he stands, his fervor for them

cooling so slowly he can't feel it—

the speed of glaciers, maybe,

how one age slides into the next.