A lesson about dinosaurs
Jonny Rodgers
That break we were sent out
to find the skeletons of leaves.
All the brittle bones
from which time had tried
to brush away the green.
Carried back in shoeboxes,
laid out on a plastic sheet,
they were specimens
that caught our breath.
In came tubs of PVA,
our treasure drowned
in a deep white spread.
Next day (fingers picked clean)
it was hanging
before the big window,
plastic gone,
taller than teacher,
a sheet of alien skin
stained like glass from a church
with emeralds and ribs and veins.
In sunlight,
our slice of decay.
Jonny Rodgers is a writer of poetry and short fiction from the Northwest. He completed a doctorate in Contemporary Fiction at the University of Manchester and now teaches in South Manchester. His publications include: Envoi, Stand, The Broken Spine, Ink, Sweat and Tears, Flash Fiction North, Prole and Cake.