The Ankylosaur Affirmation


I am master of Legos—molded palms,
fruit trees, low-lying green rounds.
The color of road cones, my embedded plates protect me
against Spongebob’s atomic leg drop.
No See N’ Say can imitate the rack of my club tail.

I have memories of fighter jets,
Montana flats, Barnum Brown’s classification,
the chalkboard scrape of Deinonychus claws.
My wide skull, my acorn brain, my plateless underbelly.
A boy pokes my clumpy neck with a No. 2 pencil.

I hate the flash that roughs my parts.
Too much injection? Not enough pressure?—-who cares
what forced me carnivore. I must chew those burrs,
imagine grass. I must teach myself to drive a fire engine.
I must teach myself to drive fire.

  -T.A. Noonan

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