Once again, the kiddo provides the spark. Yesterday she asked me why dodo birds weren’t alive anymore. I said, “Well, hon, they just weren’t very good at being alive.” Then I started thinking about whatever it was I meant when I said that. The dodos truly had no defense and no idea that people would want to harm them. It’s fearlessness to the point of idiocy. That’s kind of how I feel sometimes; I don’t anticipate humanity’s awfulness, and then it’s so much harder to deal with than it would be for someone who expected the worst from the outset. I realized this is my second poem on extinction this month, so analyze away. Here’s “Extinction’s It Girl.”