The Elephant

In the circus you rambled, leg
Sashayed leg and your
Loose chest rattled with
Sickness or Death,
I adored your kind.
At the carnival I won you,
Pink and purpled nosed,
I would march you to the
Watering hole then back home,
But my home wasn’t yours.

In Africa they cherish your kind as
Their diamonds,
Red hued and gleaming,
Your tusks were the
Apple of their eye,
The hunters would gossip late:
Ivory, ivory-
The African dream!
They shot herd after herd unmercifully,
Stealing tusks,
The tusks of many, and
Left you and them to die.

In America they keep you in
Zoos where wide-eyed
Toddlers, latched to their Mothers,
Gape at you.
Oh-ah—
Hear its trill?
You’re a star in this
Eden prison,
All year round, cotton candy
Blemishes the iron bars and candy wrappers
Lay muddled in the trench your
Daughter toppled in.
She cried and cried, but
They couldn’t get through.

In the mystic world you meant
Something grand, something
Foreboding, a Godly warning that
Hung over my head like a guardian angel.
The Hindus regaled you, your half-sun head
Glided with gold encrusted rubies, tassels, and such which
Promised glory and good luck.
Yet your presence, currently, is not
One to gloat,
Last night, the shadows
Cowered at my lamp light, then deepened
Into a ghastly scowl, I, encouraged,
Peeked towards their murky halo and
Saw the crested head, the elephant,
Your nose uprighted and ears folded as you
Slid forth by some force.

In general knowledge,
There is a saying:
Elephant in a room,
It is an English idiom for
An evident truth that is overlooked or
Purposefully ignored.