The Giants, and: Apocalypse Detroit
Rent from DeepDyve- The Giants, and: Apocalypse Detroit
The Giants
Giant penguin fossil shows bird was taller than most humans . . . The Guardian
They waddle toward an inland sea,and somewhere beneath its glimmer,
some aquatic mammal (let's call him Bill),scavenges the rotting hide of a whale.
The penguins screech or honk,we cannot be sure which. Either way,
they are organized like wolves.These are penguins after all,
so on land they are ridiculous,moving in a line like nuns down the aisle
of a cathedral, but there's nothing slapstickabout their bills—long as pikes—
and when the penguins enter water,they shoot through blue at the speed
of sharks. Only when they are closecan Bill glimpse their blurs out [End Page 170]
of the corner of his dim eye. Sandclouds clarity to murk when he scurries.
You can imagine Bill to be home freewith the sanctuary of his little cave in sight.
It may as well be as far away as the sky.Bill gets to see the sky only at night,
when the penguins sleep, so moon and starsare his only reference for what skies are.
Sometimes, as he wades on the surfacein the dark, a thought buzzes his brain.
This fills him with what can only bedescribed as pleasure. Yet, in this moment,
he simply flees. This strategy has beenfailing his kind for twenty thousand years.
That's when the penguins first swam overfrom their beaches across the sea to find
his species swarming these waters withoutworry. So, one penguin chases as others
hover, and Bill can't see that his pathleads him into a snapping gauntlet.
It is quickly decided, and the water becomesred cloud. The penguins then pull Bill ashore
to devour. They lean over him like pigsat a trough, but pigs haven't evolved yet.
Just other mammals that resemble pigsbut are really the ancestors of horses. [End Page 171]
Apocalypse Detroit
If you squint toward the smoggy dawnabove the Eight Mile, you'll see dark-suitedghosts in hats and bonnets wagon-travelingacross Indian country. Vacant Brush Park mansionscatch the wind like flutes. It isn't the musicof Orpheus they make but of Eminem.They only house zombies now, but zombiesdon't exist. The homeless have made a pilgrimagehere to congregate in silence. Even the ratshave left, nothing to eat but asphalt and asbestos.Like Atlantis, Motown sinks, but there is no sea,only the Detroit River, filthy as the exhaustspuming from your grandfather's Cadillac. [End Page 172]
Brian Patrick Heston grew up in Philadelphia. His poems have won awards from the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Memorial Fund, Robinson Jeffers Tor House Foundation, Lanier Library Association, and River Styx. His first book, If You Find Yourself, won the Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award. He is also the author of the chapbook Latchkey Kids, available from Finishing Line Press. His poetry and fiction have appeared in such publications as Rosebud, West Branch, North American Review, Harpur Palate, Spoon River Poetry Review, Poet Lore, and River Styx. Presently, he is a PhD candidate in literature and creative writing at Georgia State University.
