In the photograph that my father has
me take of him with the woolly mammoth,
he’s pointing to himself. He asks

to see the selfie. I don’t correct
his terminology. Next, the triceratops, then
the sabretooth tiger. He takes the same stance

throughout the Extinction Exhibit. With the 4000-
year-old beetle, 300-million-year-old coelacanth,
the dodo. She was beautiful,

he sighs at the butterfly, and I get the sense
he’s thinking about mom. Earlier, in his kitchen,
he posed with a jar of mayonnaise

with the expiration date from 1998, also pointing
to himself. At the cemetery, he stands on his plot,
next to my mother, because I refuse to let him

lie down. Back at his apartment, he says it’s nice
to have some company. I know
he's referring to his defunct card game, so we go

down to the game room. He sits at their once
regular table and points around the empty chairs,
Billy, Dick, Harold, Nat, Frank, hey Joe. He deals

them in. I take the picture of him squinting at the cards, fanned
tight to his chest. He tosses a chip to the center
of the felt. In the shot, it really looks like

he’s waiting for someone to call his bet.

Appeared in New Ohio Review, Summer 2024