Ecce Pachyderm

OM, Elephant.
We of the 20th century have the technology
To view you in your monstrous entirety.

With our zoom lens we focus
On your great cumbersome body --
All four stout legs
And strangely vulnerable ears.
They flap in the air like wings.

AH, We shut our ears to your panicked call,
Your loud and anxious trumpeting
That sounds too much like the scream
Of our own minds.

With electron microscope we dissect you, Dumbo,
The weathered leather of your drab gray skin,
And the fine soft tissue of your enormous tits.
We discover pieces of your tusks
In the cufflinks we are wearing.

HUNG, Rogue,
You had the gall to escape our laboratory
And trample the feckless scientist
Who drew your blood merely to determine
Whether you were valuable or a menace,
Non-profit or commercial.

All they found in your blood were red and white cells,
And all they found in your stomach contents
Were half-digested peanuts.

- Sally Clay
Fort Lauderdale
Friday, February 28, 1992

 

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