CALVIN FANTONE
ELEGY FOR THE GOVERNOR BY HIS ZOMBIE DAUGHTER PENNY
previously on The Walking Dead
Moontime Brian. Father Brian. Brian who sheltered my screams
in the night. The bed lamp switched on, the covers drawn tighter,
the quiet, off-key lullabies.. Brian of haphazard breakfasts.
Here is the toast, black in the center. Here is the plate
of undercooked eggs. Here is my smile on this sunny morning.
The television and its low warbling, Brian of speeding up heartbeats,
my father increasing the volume. Brian of newscasts.
The dead are walking, the people are shooting.
The dead are walking, the clatter of plates on the floor.
Brian of Penny, pack your things. We are leaving this city behind.
Here are the bags, father’s handgun pulled from the drawer.
Fleeing Brian. Brian of bloodshine and shimmering blades.
Months spent on the road, biters only steps behind us.
Here are my wounds: hair torn from my scalp, the teeth marks sinking
down to the bone. My father lifting my corpse into his arms.
Brian of magnificent failure. Penny, eyes open.
Penny of instinct, of flesh. Penny, reborn. Here is the gun unfired.
The safety clicked on. Here is my leash and my mask.
Brian's insides unwinding. Brian of ruthlessness, tearing of limbs.
The haunting collection of heads in his home. When the intruders invaded,
he tortured each one, the slicing of hands, the skin peeling back on itself.
Brian of carving men into pieces. Here is the ditch filled with bodies burning.
Funeral pyre Brian, Brian of endings and endings and endings.
Father, once, I dreamed of becoming just like the man I knew you to be.
Brian before the breaking, before the fall.
previously on The Walking Dead
Moontime Brian. Father Brian. Brian who sheltered my screams
in the night. The bed lamp switched on, the covers drawn tighter,
the quiet, off-key lullabies.. Brian of haphazard breakfasts.
Here is the toast, black in the center. Here is the plate
of undercooked eggs. Here is my smile on this sunny morning.
The television and its low warbling, Brian of speeding up heartbeats,
my father increasing the volume. Brian of newscasts.
The dead are walking, the people are shooting.
The dead are walking, the clatter of plates on the floor.
Brian of Penny, pack your things. We are leaving this city behind.
Here are the bags, father’s handgun pulled from the drawer.
Fleeing Brian. Brian of bloodshine and shimmering blades.
Months spent on the road, biters only steps behind us.
Here are my wounds: hair torn from my scalp, the teeth marks sinking
down to the bone. My father lifting my corpse into his arms.
Brian of magnificent failure. Penny, eyes open.
Penny of instinct, of flesh. Penny, reborn. Here is the gun unfired.
The safety clicked on. Here is my leash and my mask.
Brian's insides unwinding. Brian of ruthlessness, tearing of limbs.
The haunting collection of heads in his home. When the intruders invaded,
he tortured each one, the slicing of hands, the skin peeling back on itself.
Brian of carving men into pieces. Here is the ditch filled with bodies burning.
Funeral pyre Brian, Brian of endings and endings and endings.
Father, once, I dreamed of becoming just like the man I knew you to be.
Brian before the breaking, before the fall.
|
AFTER BEING SHOT AT AND CHASED BY KILLER ROBOTS ON THE 99TH DAY OF THE MACHINE APOCALYPSE
after the Terminator franchise I tried to write you a love poem. I dialed in the secret number combinations to all of the dreams you never shared with anyone but me. Opened them up, tried to re-assemble them in your eyes. It didn't work. I tried to steal the sunlight from the skyline and illuminate your face. It didn't work. I wanted to remind you of who you were before all this. None of it worked. The day that I met you, I got carried away and imagined our life together: children, a dog, a home and an always burning barbecue out back. But maybe apocalypse is the last beautiful thing we have left. Maybe to have loved is to have stood back to back in a gunfight against death machines with all of our weapons tearing through steel. Maybe it's to have wrenched bullets out of your lover’s limbs, to wrap their wounds in gauze. Maybe to have loved is to have watched nuclear bombs kaleidoscope an entire city into pieces of gravel and glass and dust. Because what is love, if not extraordinary—explosions of heat and flesh and heat and flesh and heat and flesh. The machines would explain this as a series of chemical reactions conducting the speed of our heartbeats—but I was never good at science, and you were never the type to believe everything you read in textbooks. If we never make it to safety, if the satellites pinpoint our location and send in the cyborg cavalry before we have time to map out our escape, don’t be frightened. We’ll hold the scopes of our guns up to our eyes like children peering through spyglasses. We can enjoy the view of the fire. |
Calvin Fantone is an idea in infancy, a lightbulb in a warehouse brimming with chandeliers. His work has appeared in Writing Without Walls, The Legendary, and elsewhere. He is currently pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing at the University of San Francisco.