Size / / /

Do not pet the dinosaurs,

Or try to feed them popcorn.

They're used to ferns and ginkgos, not

Gelatinized angiosperms.

If baby theropods warble,

It means they like your yellow dress.

Keep your arms inside at all times.

This is not a diorama.

Should that ankylosaur charge,

Poof—automatically we'll

Jump a few million years ahead

To catch the earliest birds.

Let's camp on that hill tonight,

Under younger stars. Instead

Of Orion, which won't gel till

Next eon, we'll look for Bronto.

I'll go slow, to give you a chance

For some majestic pictures. But

Where or when was that turn to see

The nesting pterodactyl pair?

Oh, forgive me. I'm distracted.

It's all because of my husband.

Fifty-six tours ago, he left

The trail to chase a dragonfly

As big as our cat. "Wonderful!"

He shouted, and disappeared

Through a strand of fiddlehead ferns.

I have not seen him since.




Ken Liu is an author of speculative fiction, as well as a translator, lawyer, and programmer. A winner of the Nebula, Hugo, and World Fantasy awards, he is the author of The Dandelion Dynasty, a silkpunk epic fantasy series (The Grace of Kings (2015), The Wall of Storms (2016), and a forthcoming third volume) and The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories (2016), a collection. In addition to his original fiction, Ken also translated numerous works from Chinese to English, including The Three-Body Problem (2014), by Liu Cixin, and “Folding Beijing,” by Hao Jingfang, both Hugo winners.
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19 May 2025

I could live or survive off of bunny breath alone, eating little clouds of fog.
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Podcast read by: Emmie Christie
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