Giants
They were the pillars
that held up my sky,
the gods who carried me
on their shoulders,
or crawled across the carpet
with me perched on their back.
Now there is nothing left:
no face carved in the hillside,
no marble column, no temple,
no streets named for them,
no candles lit for them,
no obituary in the paper.
The thunder long past,
and only I, still shaken,
struggling to remember
the shape of their hands,
the words with which
they said good night.
(First published in the Atlanta Review)