By Christopher Brean Murray

I was 200 feet tall. I’d been so
for hours. My cabin was in ruins.
My doctor hung up. I wouldn’t be
attending the banquet, nor did
my socks fit. I couldn’t read
the missive’s minute script.
Washing in the river was futile—
it trickled over my toe. I shattered
the oak I’d climbed as a child.
How would I live? Someone
gave me some tiny turnips.
My towering hunger made them
sublime. In the valley where I slept,
the leaves were my clothes.
I dreamt I was restrained
by a miniscule mob. They peeped
in a language I couldn’t fathom.
I swatted at clouds, kicked over
trees, and plucked a jet from the sky.
I pleaded with the passengers, but
they just screamed. I flung them away
and set out for the city . . .

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Christopher Brean Murray’s book, Black Observatory (Milkweed Editions), was chosen by Dana Levin as the winner of the 2022 Jake Adam York Prize and was included on the New York Public Library’s list of Best Books of 2023. His chapbook, The Fugitive Lands, is forthcoming from Gasher Press in 2025, and his poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Copper Nickel, Quarterly West, and other journals. He lives in Houston.