She’s digging a hole in the front yard,
scarf folded tight to her head, a four-year-old
babushka practicing paleontology.
The damage done to the lawn, I wait to see
what she’ll unearth.
For a year she’s collected
plastic dinosaur skeletons. One walked
when we wound it up, until it marched
into a wall then tried, gears grinding, to pass
through like a ghost. She cried and insisted
that we unwind its small motor, rest
its legs, let it stop. Everything should stop
when it needs to, she said as I helped
her into bed.
Excavation complete
she folds a dead bird’s wings and buries it.
Originally published in Cider Press Review, Volume 1.
