for Paula Terry & Bill Cleveland 

Maybe it was nearly running out of gas 
an hour-plus out of Bismarck, North Dakota, 
thinking about fossil fuel 
with needle registering below empty, 
staring at a huge fiberglass and concrete cow 
perched on one of the stark hillsides, 
and imagining walking several miles for more gas, 

but I'm there in Dickinson, the self-proclaimed 
"Queen of the Prairie" 
at the Hospitality Inn 
and while I'm checking in everyone 
goes off to the Dakota Dinosaur Museum without me. 
The advertisement proclaimed: 
10 Full Scale Dinosaurs and more... 
Albertosaurus, Orinthomimus, Edmontosaurus and Stegosaurus. 
This was fine until Paula and I decided to go later, 
and the museum was closed, 
despite its posted hours. 
We tried again and the same thing happened. 
It depressed me immeasurably. 
Now, I don't really care much about dinosaurs, 
other than the fact that some of my close personal friends 
have a lot in common with dinosaurs, 
and everyone at the hotel said we'd get there, 
look at 'em and be bored 
like they were after about half an hour. 
It was more that the idea of the stupid things 
got wedged into my brain 
and wouldn't leave me alone. 

I kept thinking of a story John Kotarski told me  
about a friend whose wife didn't believe at all in dinosaurs 
and John relating he went kind of berserk, saying, 
"What! She doesn't believe in dinosaurs!" 
(this from a man who with his girlfriend took turns 
hurling furniture through windows over how hot a perfect 
bath should be) 
"I can't imagine it; how can you live with a woman 
who doesn't believe in dinosaurs?" 
And his friend looked at him and said, 
"John, John, you know it doesn't come up that often." 

For me, it doesn't come up much at all, 
but there I was with this (must I say it?) 
primordial itch I couldn't scratch 
and the next day I was in Louisiana 
surrounded by swamps while talking with 
people about cyberspace and telecommunications 
but all I could think about was dinosaurs, dinosaurs, and how 
they would have loved this place, 
how the gorgeous hummingbirds would be like little 
after-dinner mints to them, 
and I couldn't sleep for imagining huge cold-blooded bodies 
sloshing through the swamps, not at all minding 
the 95 degrees and humidity, 

then next I was heading to Washington DC, 
in a jet that was burning fossil plants and bodies 
huge gallon by huge gallon, 
remembering a large mammoth skeleton that was 
discovered near Flint, Michigan 
and some green reporter asking excavators if there was 
anything unusual about it, and later in a story 
quoting Doc Wilson saying, 
"yes, well, this is the first time we've ever seen 
a mammoth wander this close to an expressway..." 

but now here I am in DC, reading the paper about all the doings 
of Congress and if that doesn't make you think 
about dinosaurs I mean my god what will? 
So I'm hurrying, fast as I can 
to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, 
to see the skeletons I know are waiting but before I get there 
I run into the Festival of American Folklife 
and hear the Six Nations Women Singers do some powwow songs, 
am somewhat distressed that I missed the social dance songs 
even though I hadn't planned on any of this, 
but suddenly it starts raining, 
and I'm accosted by an elderly gentleman 
in a red and white striped umbrella hat 
who's handing out leaflets and wearing a placard that asks, 
"Are you being mind controlled?" 
and I want to say, yes, yes, it's the stupid dinosaurs, 
they're caught in the Le Brea tar pit of my brain and 
they've settled deep into my bones.