When the GPS goes rogue and routes me
through backwoods and boonies somewhere
north of Brooksville, down unmarked roads
populated with more cyclists and horse-drawn
carriages than cars, I almost can’t believe it

when I catch sight of the headless dinosaur.
Its concrete bones and wire guts face the road
like some decapitated cryptid, yet still it stands,
the hindmost three-fifths of a brontosaurus,
and inside me jets a rush of wild wonder like bats

pouring from hidden lofty rafters. Someone
has strung a ghoulish menagerie of ghosts, witches,
and skeletons along the cavern of its hollow belly
for Halloween, feeding us drivers’ curiosity
for what lives inside our bones and inhabits

the things we will leave behind. When the road
finally brings me to the first sign of civilization
in the form of an unlit marquee that reads
CAR SHOW  CORN BEEF  CABBAGE,
where nearby the Seventh-day Adventist Church

touts that you should follow them on Facebook
and even further on at the usual roadside curios—
the bail bondsman billboards, the miniature ponies,
the giant pink elephant with glowing eyes which
nobody ever believes me about—my head is still

back there with the dino, weathering the sun
like a Dinosaur World reject, and I feel feral
thinking about the ghosts in my belly and what
it must be like to remain facing forward for decades
with our innermost, tenderest parts out first.