Extinction by Erik Carlsen
Nobody will ever tell you
How your voice sounds like a Passenger pigeon
Or that your legs are long like a Javan lapwing
You are never going to be as curious as a Gould’s mouse
Or as strong as an aurochs when you overturn the birdbath
Before the first frost
I have never seen Schomburgk’s deer
Grazing in their small herds or leaping
Over my backyard fence
In a dream I pet a Fuegian dog
Who growled at spearmen in the shadows
Who drank from cool water in the hollow of my side
I have held the skull of the last warrah
Touched under its jaw and felt desperation
In the bone
Before the stitches went in and my bone was there
I felt that same thing, too
The peace of knowing you are the last of your kind