by Michael Estabrook
Kelenken guillermoi
Imagine if you will if you can if you dare
a creature nine feet tall nine feet long
500 pounds, razor talons, a giant hooked beak
the top predator in our world but with feathers yes
a bird, a bird fast as a horse big as a horse well that’s
what we were dominating the landscape
here in South America
where there were no wolves or giant cave bears
or snarly sabre-toothed cats
until 2 million years ago
when the stupid Panamanian land bridge appeared
rather miraculously if you ask me rising right up
out of the sea permitting the predatory carnivores
from up north to stream across
overrunning our lands stealing our food
and we simply could not compete and that was that.
Scientists refer to us as Terror Birds
descended directly from the mighty Tyrannosaurus Rex.
We did them damn proud yes we did
for a long long time
and that is nothing to be ashamed of.
Just be thankful we are not still tromping around
the savannahs and jungles pummeling everything
in our path with our powerful sickle-hammer beaks
including people too if you got in our way.
Michael Estabrook has been publishing his poetry in the small press since the 1980s. He has published over 20 collections, a recent one being The Poet’s Curse, A Miscellany(The Poetry Box, 2019).
