poem of the day 07.20.10

vertebrates

standing in the near dark
at the metropolitan museum
of natural history

waiting for my wife

who’s stuck in the ubiquitous line
for the women’s restroom

there is a film being projected

it is all about vertebrates

it is as interesting as everything else
in the museum of natural history

which to me means
not very interesting at all

but there are hordes of people
watching this film
learning everything that they can
about vertebrates

until the narrator begins to talk about us

humans

the only vertebrates with the capacity
to make another of our kind extinct

the films shows images of smog
and garbage dumps
seas of traffic and airplane streaks
across the blue sky

that’s when everyone gets up
to move away from the film

for there is no need to be disparaging of our race
on a saturday afternoon in the big city

this is just when the film is getting interesting
maybe i’ll sit down and watch this
for a little bit. i think

but then my wife comes out of the restroom

and we decide to take a walk
though the great hall of dinosaurs
looking for the tyrannosaurus rex
or one of them other, big, lost giants

run off this gas ball by little more
than flaming rocks
falling from the orange-yellow sky.