Zana Previti

Gojira

There is really no such thing as me:
gorilla-whale. My suit, my skin, is fireproof,
I think. I am happy, here inside, unseen.

Keiko adjusts my mask, peers, asks, “Can you see?”
I move like chains across a bed. I am the room.
In here, there is no such thing as me.

Rubber face, glue, hair like shroud, feels
big big big. I have no lines, but lots to do.
I am happy though, here inside unseen.

I am better than the men. I fit inside. I barely breathe.
Hell is shapeless inside shape. Hell is watching others move . . .
But no, there is no such thing. Me

and mine, shoulders feet neurons spit, we
steep, conspire inside. I cannot sit. I hear no cue.
I am happiest to be here, Gojira. Unseen.

Sunset over cardboard city. Keiko dismantles body
each limb by limb. The suit will not remove:
there is no such thing. I am not me.
I am happy happy happy I am happy here unseen.

Zana Previti was born in New England. She has an MFA in Fiction from the University of California, Irvine, and is pursuing her MFA in Poetry at the University of Idaho. Her fiction has been published in the New England Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, and elsewhere, but “Gojira” is her first poetry publication. She lives in Moscow, Idaho.