antigone 4

By | 5 December 2019

for peter twal

when elephants mourn their dead, they do it quiet.
no sound, just puffs of air from tender trunks
that nuzzle fallen tusks and lower jaws.
the pillars of their legs shuffling around
those great grey faces. antigone wants
to be an elephant most of the time.
this world has grave enough for elephants.

we’d blow soft air through what trunks we have,
hold our wailing in, make silence blue.
elephant funerals draw no snipers. they’ll mistake
our grief for wind. perhaps our bodies shake
the ground, perhaps our hides are weathered, too.
we’ll make an earthquake when we fall.
they can kill us all, antigone, but then we’ll be dirt dreams.

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