Giant
The one exceptional thing about him—
as we worked late August nights on import
software for Italian racing-bikes for his friend Italo,
percentage landing charges, demurrage, lire
conversions and freight forwarding—
was there was nothing exceptional about him
if you ignored the tallest-man-in-the-country
thing, maybe in-the-world back then, and maybe
his giant-size civility. And that we’d take
our son to watch him at Sunday soccer
though basketball was his first love, or to see
him play a circus giant in the Merrick film.
(Yes, in-the-world, probably—a Melbourne chain
had him open ‘giant’ hypermarkets across that huge
continent). And that his VW driver’s seat
was well in the back, his racing-bike a pair
of penny-farthing ‘pennies’ with eleven gears.
Our children found out giants today
far from overbearing could be wry,
awkward and funny—like, but not at all
like, anybody else. And even when he sat
right down on our low-profile sofa
he couldn’t avoid talking down to us.
The papers when he finally passed on
would focus mostly on the ten pallbearers.
Winner, Keats-Shelley Prize, 2017
Other Poems
Read more about Cahal Dallat’s poetry.
