I know someone else who
signed his name very slowly.
Very deliberately. Only his
signature was boxy – it had
curves, but it was mostly like
a bunch of bubbles or a bunch
of those soft pillows you put
on your bed after you’ve made
it of a morning, if you live fancy.
No comparison whatsoever, this
signature’s like a bunch of thin
buttes in the desert, smashed
together by bulldozer bookends,
or the viny vegetation that grows
upwards upon bluffs in country
made up entirely of blocky rocks
as far as the eye, would there be
one there, could see. Brushed out
like an EKG in blue felt tip. Not a
script upon or around which any
thing might ever have lived, save
the stegosaurus and the triceratops
who used to wrestle in the flat-
rocked valley that, under more
natural circumstances would have
contained a flowing river, the banks
of which would surely have been
dotted with the occasional body
girded with large fishpoles that
wavered over whitewater that
roiled over mini-boulders. But
this land is nothing but rock.
Those two would wrestle well
into the moonless night in such
a way that would have frightened
passersby of any kind, human,
dinosaur or otherwise, but these
two, well, they were thoroughly
giddy. They’d get together like
this once a month, at the very
least. Each lived quite a rumble
and a tumble in quite opposite
directions. Once they said their
goodbyes, a bit bruised but no
worse for the wear, positively
spirited, about as happy, in
fact, as any two dinosaurs
in proximity should ever
be, off they’d gallop in
opposite directions,
making it to their
respective homes
right before their
respective clans
had begun to
realize they
were not
even there,
leaving no time
for any suspicion.
