the dinosaurs



their struggles rock the earth,
her horns locked into his
shoulderbone, his massive body
holding ground.  she roars a 
war cry, charges forth, again,
thrusting her three horns.  her 
neck is circled by a bony plate.  
she is the carnivore.
     he patiently endures the attacks, his
long neck stretched over her body as
his huge torso shudders now and
again.  sometimes, he turns
slightly to the side, so that her horns
glance off his bone rather than digging
deeper.  he is the herbivore, but
no less dangerous.

they have been engaged this way for
decades, she unable to pull
free of her deep gouges, and he unwilling
to be sundered.  occasionally she
is infuriated by the stalemate, and she
bites for his heart cage, to which he
charges forward a bit to unbalance 
her; she is forced to crouch on her
haunches.

between them, the thunder of their
feet has had the effect of ten
thousand little earthquakes.  the ground
has cracked like a dry plain, the pterodactyls
and insects are silent or absent, and their 
rocking has created craters underneath 
their bellies.  almost unnoticed are 
the fragments of eggshells which were half-
shattered from the clashes.  long ago, these 
small offspring emerged and sought home, bearing 
deformities.



     --jennifer crystal chien