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TONIGHT
Late afternoon, at the excavation,
you dug up a bracelet
and tossed it to me
with one word, "Here,"
usually how you showed me
arrowheads from your sieve.
Back at the Forest Service cabin,
I ran the bracelet under the spigot,
pushing away the mud to reveal a brass rose,
content to finger it instead of your hand.
I kept waiting for words from you:
an explanation, a promise, an apology.
On the last night, in our bunk beds,
you whispered that we should be together,
and then, with slight hesitation, you added
"tonight," as you climbed on top of me.
THE SERBIAN GUARD
We adopted you
and you made it
to adolescence
before you developed
schizophrenia
and became convinced
your father and I
were trying to kill you.
We wondered
if perhaps we were,
as if Montessori was to blame,
and not the Serbian guard
who killed your mother.
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THE CLEVELAND-LLOYD DINOSAUR QUARRY
Spinning in oversized desk chairs
until we're so dizzy we fall to the side,
sun-burnt chests pressed to arm rests-
I'm in love, I tell Hillary, head down, still spinning.
Did you do it? she asks.
Not yet, I say, touching my reddened belly with a Bic as the chair slows
and wondering why I am a thousand miles away from him
at the Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry.
The quarry is famous for juvenile specimens of dinosaurs
that died from dehydration and sun stroke.
Hillary goes to the microwave for s'mores, but they are too hot to touch;
"I'm thirsty!" I call out across the quarry office.
She brings us more pink wine coolers from the mini-fridge.
We unscrew them and toast nothing.
The toilet doesn't work properly and the office has begun to stink.
We sleep in the back with all the windows open, eating outside on the picnic table
and I imagine that one day I will be a mom to a sun-burnt vacationing family
that stopped by the quarry with our delighted children who are T-Rex experts.
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