THE MEGAFAUN: FACT OR FICTION?
It’s thought they died with their necks bent.
The twelve-foot splay of their antlers
the tonnage of their antlers driving
their muzzles into ploughshares.
A sacred knot in their shoulders
a perpetual shrug in their shoulders heaving
their bodies over plains endless with grass
their heat through continents of ice
their breath into steam at the treeline.
It’s thought their antlers were crates
their antlers crated with intelligence
chocked by their own overreach
heaped too much with knowing themselves
incapable, themselves their likeliest end
and the end of all seditious heft
sent them nosing through the dirt
their nostrils shattering open like cockpits
their throats like fuselage capping with dirt
formidable landing gear still retracted
into the hatches in their chests and haunches.
Author’s Bio
Andy Verboom edits the Word Hoard and organizes Couplets, a collaborative poetry reading series. His poetry has recently appeared in The Puritan, Arc, CV2, BafterC, and 300 Hours a Minute (Desert Pets, 2015). He is the author of Tower (Anstruther, 2016) and co-author of Full Mondegreens (Frog Hollow, 2016).