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He came, this eleven-year-old
flesh of my flesh of my flesh;
we went exploring hills Indians named
horse heaven with grasses lush.
For years the line of rolling hills
looked connected yet were clearly not.
My obsession with dinosaurs
allowed a picture for me
the real connection below ground
the spine of a prehistoric beast
a body buried in glacial silt
from forces of antiquity.
It was always plain to me
a line of hills - a backbone
a body too unmanageable
to escape the flow of sediments
a death of smotheration
and I shudder needlessly.
But Alex shakes his head - no, no
grandma don't you think? It's kids
covered with their blanket folds
hiding heads and toes
camouflaged from elders
look and you can see.
I look again at my treeless hills
softly rounded, brown with brush
gullies like shadowed blanket folds
so stuck in my own sensation
I shrug to wonder why I'd
never thought of it myself.
I'd made a tent of blankets
childish giggles instead of sleep.
Whatever gave you that idea?
It's a good one to be sure;
those massive hills had never
seemed so personal before.
Grandma, I saw it plainly when
flying high above - looking down
I remembered my own quilt
and my head covered playing
peek-a-boo, Grandpa and me
when I was just a baby.