sleep fells me with a sucker punch
to the head: I fall for it
forfeit a waste of days in favor
of elephants dreamed—
a pachyderm herd
gray hides a tracery
trunks a tidal wave of gray—
awake: rays nail me to a pillow: yellow
spreads across my sham. Another damn—
egrets perch, smears of white
on swaying gray—elephants as fodder
for a bird of parasites: tusks
as weaponry—
my lids don’t close: I am nose to nose
with elephant: a tusk nudges
my skull: I am not
my scars, I say—
elephant’s eye-glint
impales. Her ear’s a ragged flap. Scars
are us, she answers back.
What do you think?