Double Dutch

At some point in your childhood,

you and your friends went outside

to play together for the last time

and nobody knew it.

—original source unknown

The final child born

will never grasp that they’re

the final child born.

It will go unnoticed

they’re at the end of a

line of births. The bookend

to some Adam. Or a hominin’s

initial step upon savannah.

I’ve read that

nearly every single species

that’s ever been 

has gone extinct.

The last in a march of

dodos

didn’t know 

she was the last of the

dodos. That Mauritius

was as far

as her DNA would

venture.  

And the T-Rex

on his back—looking up 

to an iridium sky?

Couldn’t have fathomed

his voice would go unheard,

save for animatronics,

some lie of CGI—

that homo would someday

conjure.

The trilobite was

an Era-long survivor,

the face of Palaeozoic.

As hardy as they came.

Now embedded

into rock, like engraving

on a stone that cries

you’re missed and

greatly loved. The last of

only you 

& you alone. 

Dear infant of the

future near or

far: you’ll have to

carve an epitaph

on your own. No one there

to guide you how to chisel;

none to rhythmically

chant

your accolades—

while they’re skipping

through a rope,

or of your endless

string of failures—

unfurled

like a rubber

chord, fashioned

to a loop that cries

finalis; no schoolgirls

left to sing

to your every sway.

Andreas Gripp

August 10, 2025

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