June 2009 – Of Warmth, Of Dragons

The giant flees helter-skelter down the street, noisily pursued by the neighborhood dogs.

I can’t see a beanstalk anywhere, only some white, scallop-edged clouds pasted on an endless blue sky.

The barking grows fiercer. In his panic and confusion, the giant trips on the uneven cobblestones. Maybe it’s the drugs everyone took in college, or the years of road rage since then, but people just step around him, pretending he isn’t lying there huge and helpless.

Later, when school lets out, the children will cautiously approach the spot. They’ll hold out their cell phones and take his picture, as if all the porn in the world has metastasized to their hearts.

Howie Good, a journalism professor at the State University of New York at New Paltz, is the author of six poetry chapbooks, most recently Tomorrowland (2008) from Achilles Chapbooks.

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