Elephant
when she was 12 years old
and guiltless, far too
innocent to decipher wrong
in nocturnal caresses,
rushed kisses converted into
sandpaper against her skin,
that was when her
tragedy started,
her inability to say no, a wild-eyed elephant,
stampeded the confines
of her girlish bedroom
it is hard to hide an elephant in closets,
hard to impress boys when it
chases you home from school,
never easy to explain
that the bottles of sleeping pills and booze
are the only way to make
a hide that big
completely numb
she had mastered overlooking
enormous shadows,
so much so
that it left her surprised,
the elephant,
too many years later,
sitting tuxedoed on the second row pew,
trunk extended like pre-teen leg,
trembling
and waiting to wear the garter
unsure of how to make it go
she simply said ‘I do’
and now it’s a part of her, massive,
like fears that he will leave her,
the unknowing husband, who never seems to notice it,
sitting at the foot of their queen sized dilemma,
tusks pointed, spear-like, anticipating his advance,
eyeing him as it would any
ivory hunter,
it doesn’t care that he’s never once hit her
it doesn’t care that, more than measurements, he
weighed her from within,
even waited, to fully seek her, on their wedding night,
but any honeymoon suite suffers
with 2 tons of anxiety in its bed
and yet he comforts her
each time that she flinches,
tells her he loves her, though it manages
to trample over the words,
and at night, she barely sleeps
too shaken by
thunderous footsteps that resound
like confessions for sins:
no’s that still go unheard
the ladies in the neighborhood
that go jogging with her
never seem to notice the bulge in her
pocket
it is sitting there, watching,
movements and strangers,
listening for noises,
preparing to charge,
the elephant knows what they don’t know,
what her 12 year old flesh was
forced to find out
too often
things die without sound
