Writing Under the Influence
Summer/Autumn 2009
J. BRAXTON COOPER
The Way of the Dodo
A reputation that endures
even extinction, ultimately, is the legacy
of that absurd omnivorous biped,
for even its derogatory name to remain
synonymous with the inevitable
– its one true consolation.
It walked, in the manner of an urban bird,
the Mauritius isle,
articulate only in the syllables of its own name.
For food it plucked, with the hook of its bill,
the fruit of the Tambalacoque,
and without knowledge or will,
from the depths of its regenerative core,
germinated each ingested seed
which, in time, would ripen and burst forth
into immaculate new trees,
to ensure its own brief lineage.
Now both bird and tree persist in allegory only
along with frightened Alice,
at the bottom of some dark hole,
where they run around in circles together
with the eaglet & the lory & the duck
all winning
where, because of sympathy,
the dodo returns to Alice
the thimble from her own pocket as a prize.
author retains all rights
© 2009
J Braxton Cooper is a 2004 graduate of the University of Iowa Writer’s Workshop. His poems have appeared in Hamilton Stone Review, Parthenon West, and The Colorado Review. He lives in Portland, OR and teaches for Kaplan University. In his spare time he writes reviews for Soundcheck Magazine.
