Maiasaura, Good Mother Dinosaur
No one asks me about my favourite dinosaurs, now my teen boys shut themselves away to chase electronic prey. They were the first toy phase I enjoyed, after years of crashing cars, train track frustrations. I read them the long lists of facts, Walking with Dinosaurs on constant replay. We googled the latest finds, so many new discoveries since my time of Triceratops and Brontosaurus. It’s Stygimoloch, by the way, the hard-headed, crown of horns Styx Demon. My eldest still lectures me on him, the petulant teen stuck between child Draco Rex and adult Pachycephalosaurus, stubbornly finding his place. And Liopleurodon, not strictly a dino, but a marine reptile, splendid in his own right, splashing and singing the seas like my youngest, a boy of few consonants, who first wrapped his reluctant tongue around the name in the bath. I tuck away the plastic models and books, tidy the nest of cast-off socks from my dinosaurs’ rampant growing feet, aware I am slowing turning to fossil. Bio: Gerry Stewart is a poet, creative writing tutor and editor based in Finland. Her poetry collection Post-Holiday Blues was published by Flambard Press, UK. Totems is to be published by Hedgehog Poetry Press in 2022. Her writing blog can be found at http://thistlewren.blogspot.fi/ and @grimalkingerry on Twitter.
Fevers of the Mind 