THE PRODIGAL GODZILLA

(part 1)

When I was old enough to stay up late without a babysitter,
the TV transfixed me: I would sit, afraid to let the blue glow fade, to feel the cold photo of night press itself against the picture window, because I knew Godzilla would be there,
taken from the screen
like a drop from a petrie dish suddenly grown full-size and looming.

Godzilla, some stillborn child put on this earth horribly starving,
with a throat thimble-thin and a gullet wide as an ocean,
full of a depleted vocabulary of fire and rage, never able
to express his needs and so hated, fired upon
by toy armies of reason.

Godzilla, I get back the X-ray from the hospital;
He’s in me now, trashing against my ribcage.
I knew junk food was a curse, but not this bad.
I didn’t know it could have children. Now my womb
swallows the sky, and everyone is watching.