Elephant Chain
Off the bat this would read better if
I.
Off the bat this would read better if
the elephants in the room were not
so obvious. There are six.
No matter how many times you hustle them from room
to room, one hooks its trunk onto the other’s tail
and a chain forms: kitchen to study.
You cannot move past them in this narrow doorway
and it is a doorway, this landing between
study and bathroom and kitchen. The curtness delights me.
It’s a bigger square than it looks.
There’s nothing to suggest it isn’t spacious—
the expanse of tile, a trick of the eye.
Elephants in the way will complicate things.
They are not sleek and jammy as the cat,
soft liquid innards and warm purring haunches
tucking into you at night.
