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.
II.
Five years: the only habitual touch
the sandpaper tongue of the cat.
Once, left eyebrow and right.
Between them last. Skin tugging,
and I imagine the mites swimming
in this little mouse-cat’s body.
He tucks into me without caution or malaise.
The elephants resent him, rightfully so.
One can only sever so many tails.
That’s what this chaining will come to,
should they keep linking and jamming
the doorway of my new green house.
III.
It’s a little thing, bigger than it looks,
down the street from the elementary school.
The sky is wide from the windows,
and the backyard holds all six
on most days. They romp and rumpus.
Leave me alone until they don’t.
Some nights they burst in through
the back door, uninvited.
Those are the nights I can’t get
the deadbolt to slide. It’s the humidity,
of course. Wood swelling. Bolt missing
its groove. Reasonable, really.
IV.
I was once so swollen all I needed
was the right slick. I know the door frame
resistance, the almost-fit.
Anne Carson writes of moors and losing Law—
well Anne, I walked away from an analyst,
not a lawyer, though ruthlessness
shows itself in both professions.
If I trade my nudes for elephants instead, will that do?
I walked moors once. Climbed out a window
back to the neighborhood path by the oak.
Read by headlamp in the branches
until dawn. I was never bothered
until the last time: a syringe still warm
to the touch. I did not return.
We moved away two days later.
Unrelated, but I would not have gone back anyway.
V.
The elephants are still here.
They’ve formed a chain in the living room,
circling, shuffling. The cat is trying
to sleep. I keep telling them.
They don’t care. I’m learning
elephants, in groups like this, usually don’t.
There are too many for you
to be taken seriously.
I still don’t know how to get rid of them
except to throw peanut butter into the yard.
I like to watch them stomp
after the hunks. A good release,
chucking wads into the grass
when I want to eat the jar whole.
I’m prone to get fat when the elephants
are around.
The most I’ve wrangled before was three.
One was faint, already weak
when she rolled in. That was college.
My roommate’s boyfriend camped every weekend
in our shared space, escaping
his shitty university. It was not a fair trade.
I started drinking more. Took
the elephants out with me.
They left that summer
and forty pounds stayed.
I know what could happen now,
what with six.
VI.
When I found the syringe,
I had no elephants.
Though I wished for one—any one—
desperately.
I wished for an elephant
the first time I lived alone,
came home drunk,
smashed my hot teary face into the carpet.
I’ll wish for elephants again,
I’m sure. But for now
I’d easily trade the majestic, brutal beasts
for some sleep.
And a little less
heavy treading
on my beating
vicious
heart.
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