Natalie Whittaker
I watch Jurassic Park
for what must be the hundredth time in a packed living room all chairs and floor space taken the volume is turned right down and everyone’s talking over it but I fill in the plot and can quote all the lines maybe across the belly spilling your intestines the point is you are alive when they start to eat you I say the seatbelts in the helicopter don’t work and this is called foreshadowing a mosquito is silent trapped in amber and stuck with a needle spared no expense Kate brings in some beers stands in front of the screen and by the time our bottles are empty Nedry’s driving through driving rain in a yellow mac towards blindness all security systems down you didn’t say the magic word and Kate says we don’t need the sound on do we you know it all and I suppose I do I know what it’s like to climb an electric fence and be too scared to let go too scared to jump off to hold on tighter even as the siren is wailing a warning to let it surge to explosion the point is you are alive when they start to eat you Dr Malcom is silent bleeding on the back of a jeep mouthing must go faster must go faster and I know how it feels to hold a shattered windscreen up against the teeth and breath so close in the night to flail a flare in the darkness a distraction and if you ask do I breed raptors I’ll nod and wear a white coat and say yes I breed raptors my velociraptors hatching from their eggs all crying and claws and I cradle them even as I hate them and they grow learn to open doors doors I’ve tried to keep shut stalk around unlit kitchens snorting and purring my terror reflected in a stainless steel cabinet trapped and tap tap tapping a ladle a distraction but life they say life finds a way you just have to wait for the helicopter to lift you off the island
NATALIE WHITTAKER is a poet and secondary school teacher from South East London. Her debut pamphlet, Shadow Dogs, is published by ignitionpress. Natalie’s second pamphlet is forthcoming from Verve Poetry Press in Spring 2021