Hunting For Habeast Poem by Jonathan Andrew Perez

Giganticism (n.)-deep in the sea creatures develop to an abnormally large size.

The bottom of the ocean is full of unseen species
Kraken, Isopod, Giant Isopod at sublittoral below zero
Benthic for years a biomass, that thing that left its skin on the floor—

To go on down in the deep dark abyss, hunting for a Habeast,
gloomily despite legislation, it scavenges the carcasses of whale-sharks
squeamish knees, the starving prisoners in snow-fall krill, buckled.

Larger pods and millions of giant crustaceans since (I blame the drugs
And microwaves) , in unison protesters dance, in hieroglyphs made
In storms of years of injustice, a Habeast looms, a Corpus flies back.

There, under the meticulous frigid dark beneath Baja California,
A border that compromises mobility, the swift buzz of Appeal en Masse,
The movement of exoskeletons, blind shrimp, crunchy legs dance—

A man is down there in the abyss crying off hinterlands for help
The bottom of which has unnamed unheard narratives that law cannot catch.