I once had a pet that was special, unique:
a quetzalcoatlus with two-metre beak
and a forty foot wingspan, as big as a plane,
a creature whose equal I’ll not see again.
A scientist gave me a big egg one day –
she’d been mucking about with some old DNA –
then after a fortnight that smooth eggshell cracked
and I almost fell over, completely gobsmacked.
Not a bird – I was stunned, I wa shocked to the core –
but a sixty-six million year-old pterosaur.
I brought up the creature and I called him Brian
and when he had fledged I would take him out flying.
When Brian was full-grown there was something new:
he was big enough now to take me with him too.
We’d spend afternoons soaring all over the sky
simply sharing the joy of being able to fly.
Ah, those days were the happiest I ever had
but I cannot remember without feeling sad.
He was not just a pet but my truest, best friend
so imagine my grief when that time had to end.
He was lonely, you see, having been, from his birth
the last one of his species to live on the Earth.
One morning he saw something high up above.
My friend was electrified – Brian was in love!
He soared and he swooped to perform his display
but my pride in him suddenly turned to dismay
as he courted a Cessna 175,
an encounter that Brian was not to survive.
I found him all battered, all bloodied and red.
As Brian lay dying I cradled his head.
I struggled to save him as long as I could
but my friend went extinct – only this time for good.
