Published in Overland Issue 217 Summer 2014 · Uncategorized Dinosaur Brendan McDougall curled up in a dead world now underground, stroking brontosaurus’ long, fictional neck & you can’t help but see yourself in the kitchen light’s reflection on the screen. He eats leaves as you watch his wise eyes watching for predators blink & the wind tears away his name like flesh, heating and cracking apart his bones & you’re sad, for a little while, or at least until you remember the papers your father signed at birth proving you were something and that that something was his & besides, this is Australia, a country built on digging up skeletons so even if they lose the paperwork your bones will always be your bones & when they come back for you because some southern-crossed lover needs unleaded to floor himself into the same tree his dad did all those years ago killing himself & passengers, well, then you’ll roar Brendan McDougall Brendan McDougall studies literature at the University of Melbourne and is from Ballarat. More by Brendan McDougall › Overland is a not-for-profit magazine with a proud history of supporting writers, and publishing ideas and voices often excluded from other places. If you like this piece, or support Overland’s work in general, please subscribe or donate. Related articles & Essays 1 First published in Overland Issue 228 28 September 202328 September 2023 · Cartoons Ban cars from the city Sam Wallman Sam Wallman makes the case for closing the streets off one by one. 1 First published in Overland Issue 228 27 September 2023 · Sport When the sport circus comes on Country Jenny Fraser The next huckster in the carnival of sport is the upcoming 2032 Brisbane Olympic Games. If we want aspects of it to be in line with Aboriginal protocol, we need action from across the four winds of the world. If it’s not done right we need solidarity and protest just the same. We are each other’s safety net in this theatre of sport. As a senior Aboriginal woman activist once told me, ‘we are all only as good as we negotiate’.