The Toy Dinosaur Dreams of Being Larger

 by Erin Elizabeth Smith

Strung to a ceiling fan by a leash
of yellow yarn, one has a lot of time

to think. How to be my larger cousin—
fiberglass titan of roadside theme parks,

the sticky sun firing the ferns.  House-high
and two tons, there’d be no need

for submarine tactics,
a mutt spaniel’s gummy teeth.

Instead I’d part tulip poplar
with sporked arms,

listen to the waxwings nesting
in my tenement teeth – anything

to be still among the Plant City
picnic tables, playgrounds,

safely fenced and petted clean,
pulleyed up and left

to weather, the slow rain steaming
in my unhurried mouth.

About Erin Elizabeth Smith

Erin Elizabeth Smith is the author of The Fear of Being Found (Three Candles Press 2008) and The Naming of Strays (Gold Wake Press 2011). Her poems have appeared in numerous journals, including Mid-American, 32 Poems, Zone 3, Gargoyle, Cimarron Review, and Crab Orchard Review. She teaches a bit of everything in the English Department at the University of Tennessee and serves as the managing editor of Sundress Publications.