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"Space Gator"

A lifelong Las Vegan, Miranda Cooper is an English major with a creative writing emphasis at UNLV. You can hear her read her work and be interviewed on KNPR's "State of Nevada" by clicking  here.

 

I.
A reptile of epic proportions,
Space Gator roams the galaxy
in search of the truth.
Whether that truth be the mystery of life
etched in his scaly back,
toothy ancestors scribbled in the stars,
or what makes the state of Florida
so humid
and unbearable three hundred and sixty five days
a year,
Space Gator searches.

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II.
It is unclear as to where Space Gator
hails from.
Some say he flew out from a black hole.
Some say he crawled from the bile
retched by some long dead dinosaur.
Others say that he always Was
and that he is Lord.
Space Gator finds all theories droll.

 

III.
In the year two thousand and four
the president of the United States of America
declared Space Gator
a threat to national security.
Space Gator responded by saying
the country’s problems
were personal
and that his own social values and mores
were identical to that
of the American people.
He has since limited his Earth visits
to a select few European countries.

 

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IV.
When a star dies,
Space Gator collects its remnants
and scatters them in the film of his eyes.
This endows him with the ability to survey other stars
and know the exact day,
hour,
and second
that they will expire.

 

This poem appears in the Spring 2016 issue of Helen: A Literary Magazine.

 

 

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