ELEPHANT MATRIARCH

Old mother, matriarch,
your wake rumbles the heavens,
trembles the gods
watching such vastness
set sail by its ears.
Trunk to the wind,
you follow the tracks of those
who went before
& those
who come after,
breathe in memory
as a woman sniffs sunlight
in a petticoat fresh from the line.
Your eyes palled by
years of foraging,
you turn over bones of family,
each wrapped in its shawl of dust.
The broken ones you ponder
and place to one side,
as if shifting a stone from the tomb
could summon a miracle.
Sweeping your trunk lightly
over a skull stripped of ivory,
picked clean by vultures
long flown,
you rock back & forth,
back & forth…

120 CHADWICK ROAD

And so here you are, old house,
dumped on the back of a truck,
trussed like a large, white goose

your featherboards in disarray,
the long white neck of your chimney broken,
a tattered rag for a tail.

The light has gone from your windows,
the curtains drawn on a life, the many winds
of greed gather,
hungry


& wide-winged.

Gathering & scattering,
without ritual of farewell,
scattering & gathering
the scraps


of ourselves.

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