At the Tar Pits Museum, the animals are
right where we left them: behind
the mural of Ice Age Los Angeles.
An animatronic Saber-Tooth seizes a Giant Ground Sloth
in silent surprise as you and I escape
the day’s blistering heat.
The Columbian Mammoth, in a central display,
extends tusks upward, dwarfs a mother,
two sons as they crack gum and gawp
at its giant bones stained by treacherous goo
while trumpeting and squealing from
a nearby school group grows. And we
skirt past the theater to the gift shop
where we munch fake insects in amber candy.
*
Indigo mood lighting radiates through the downtown
hotspot. Beyond the stairway, a fox is
stitched in mid-step within a papier-mâché cave.
We meander through a dense grove
of oak tables, mushroom lamps,
and roaring hipsters; settle on a leather sofa
beneath a nearby plastic tree. A stag
with glass eyes peers over your shoulder;
he joins us for dirty martinis.
Speakers thump pop tunes, drowning us
out of conversation. We leave the animals behind
for refills, move toward the gothic bar
where antler chandeliers illuminate the wall
of liquor and a millenia-old meteorite centerpiece.
*
The Red Line’s escalator bumps and clatters
too slowly as we hurry
to catch the last train. We descend
under low steel ceilings,
past levels of decorative petroglyph pavers,
tiles of extinct bison,
ten stories underground.
A mechanical buzz reverberates throughout the station.
On the platform, stale air whooshes.
A plangent double honk sounds
from the approaching metro: riderless
as it accelerates, ghosting us.
You shout to me, but
the departing cars swallow your voice.
We are stuck where the train left us.
—
Catherine Fletcher is a Virginia-based writer. Recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in Tears in the Fence, Naugatuck River Review, Under a Warm Green Linden, and the concert series Concept Lab. She was a Virginia Commission for the Arts Fellow (2022) and a Creature Conserve Mentee (2022-23). She serves on the Poetry Society of Virginia’s Literary Advisory Board and Seven Cities Writers Project’s Board of Directors.
