Megalophobia

MegalophobiaFear of large things Jamaal May (bio) It’s not that the walls are closing in, I mean,look at my shoulders, they widen even as we speak,this blazer is tearing on the blades,and nothing’s ever going to fit me again. I’m not afraidthe falling ceiling will flatten me to the floor,it’s the way my shins add inches, the wayit propels me upward, I’ve never been comfortablebeing so sky bound. The tight spaces kept meand kept me and now here you are, asking meto be bigger than gym shoes will allow,to breathe the way a hurricane breathes. When you say, c’mon, be a man, don’t you hearthe barbells hitting the floor in my head? Don’t youhear the way the furniture scrapes and appliances rattlelike the whole rabble either wants to escapeor wants to warn youthat when giants are needled out of slumberthey make a mess of neatly arranged mountains.It’s as if they don’t know how to not bean elbow cracking the Earth in half. [End Page 75] Jamaal May JAMAAL MAY is a poet and editor from Detroit, MI. His first book, Hum (Alice James Books), received the Beatrice Hawley Award, the American Library Association’s Notable Book Award, and an NAACP Image Award nomination. Other honors include the Indiana Review Prize, the Spirit of Detroit Award, and the Stadler Fellowship. Most recently, Jamaal has been awarded Rose O’Neill Literary House’s 2014 Cave Canem Residency, the 2014–2016 Kenyon Review Fellowship, and a Civitella Ranieri Fellowship in Italy. Jamaal’s poems appear in such publications as The New Republic, The Believer, Poetry, Ploughshares, NYTimes.com, and Best American Poetry 2014. With Tarfia Faizullah, he co-directs the Organic Weapon Arts Chapbook and Video Series. Copyright © 2015 The Johns Hopkins University Press

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