“Driven to extinction: Who killed the Dodo?” The Independent
It was kept in a chamber, and was a great fowle
somewhat bigger than the largest Turkey Cock, and so legged
and footed, but stouter and thicker
and of a more erect shape, coloured before like the breast
of a young cock fesan, and on the back
a dunn or deare colour. The keeper called it
a Dodo, and in the ende of a chymney
in the chamber there lay a heape
of large pebble stones, wherof hee gave it
many in our sight, some as big as nutmegs,
and the keeper told us she eats them (conducing to digestion).
This poem first appeared in The Nomenclature of Small Things (Carnegie Mellon, 2016).
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Lynn Pedersen’s poems have appeared in New England Review, Ecotone, Nimrod, Borderlands, and The Southern Poetry Review. She is the author of The Nomenclature of Small Things (Carnegie Mellon) and two chapbooks. A graduate of the Vermont College of Fine Arts, she lives in Atlanta, Georgia. www.lynnpedersen.com
