“Do you have a quarter?”

I asked my wife.

“Why?”

Couldn’t answer just yet.

Our dryer had died, and we were in the laundromat to

dry clothes.

Hadn’t been in a laundromat in years.

 

Two quarters now in hand,

I went over to the…the…

Do they have a name?

Those dispensers you put quarters in,

turn the mechanically satisfying metal handle,

to be granted candy,

faux tattoos,

simple toys.

 

One had little eggs

which, if soaked in water,

would break open and a

dinosaur would hatch from it.

Suspenseful potential.

How could you resist that?

 

#

 

I wanted to give it to my son.

He and his new wife were staying with us

before they were to fly overseas for a year.

He used to love dinosaurs.

And I’d get him dino bones, dino books, dino models,

coloring books, art kits, t-shirts, playing cards—

And a T-Rex book that folds out to a six-foot tall T-Rex.

Imposing.

 

I thought he’d appreciate the dinosaur egg.

And we could laugh over it as it grew

over the next couple days before his flight.

 

#

 

It seemed strange, though.

Adults.

Busy, and attentive to married life.

An incongruous egg.

Pre-historic.

 

Maybe I should just hatch the egg myself,

not make a “thing” out of it.

“Look—I’m growing a dinosaur!”

 

#

 

My son and his wife

left.

In the study, on a shelf—

the egg.

I should do it now.

Drop it in water.

​

Tyrannosaurus?

​

Triceratops?

​

Diplodocus?

 

Pteranodon?

​

Brachiosaurus?

 

Stegosaurus?

 

###