Just before the final extinction
There were strange and wonderful creatures
Elusive slabs of silver
Darting through the water
Among shape-shifting bulbs
Trailing fierce limbs
And some barely-there whisps
Still deadly with near visible
Strands of poison

And the stone-clasping tendrils
Living dually beneath and above
The frothing rock wacked about
By unseen surrounds

Miniscule bits buzzing through the air
But strong enough to pierce the
Thick outards of others
To suck their vital fluids
Long bendy tails with no body
Slinking among roots and shoots
A mouth at one end and nothing at the other
Lumbering bellowing lumps
With long tusks
That dazzled white in the pristine sunlight

Oddest of all, a bipartite creature
Split nearly symmetrical
Nearly similar but cruelly not
Moving by alternating stilts
Spindly and unbecoming
The two halves bound in eternal embrace
Clutching each other’s throat
Desperate to let go
But trapped, trapped by fear of succeeding