Below a vertical zoo, at the edge
of waking, I dream up a vast body
with a domed head, skin tougher than a tortoise’s,
and I —in the new tenancy of my elephantness—
test my trunk, a casual pendulum
as precise as a dragonfly’s landing,
and fan my ears like a lady shaking
out drapery. Propulsion begins, as it must,
with the idea of mother; my own— I know—is away,
lost or exiled from this place of exile
and I must find her (laws of early love
transpose us). Beneath the crush of my legs,
the stairs sway and buckle, and each landing carries
a mewling and baying. Still I tramp for miles, searching.
Soon I am a pure tug, a handler’s dream.
Sarah Giragosian‘s poems are forthcoming or have been recently published in such journals as Crazyhorse, Blackbird, and Ninth Letter, among others.