Elephant Grief
- Elephant Grief
Damini in her cage is lonely. Gray skin looseover her heavy bones. Sometimes her trunktouches the bare dirt floor. Tonight, like all the nightsbefore, she searches for the bodyof her stillborn calf. Tonight, only bananasfor Damini to eat. They brown on a fake stalk.
Sometimes, instead of sleeping, I siton the bathroom floor. I try to decipher the starsthrough the frosted pane. Across the savannas, elephantsstudy the white skulls of their dead, moving themback and forth in the dirt like stones. How simplethe intent, the desire to know. All night,I listen to your voicemails on repeat. [End Page 10]
Megan Pinto’s poems can be found or are forthcoming in Plough-shares, Meridian, The Cortland Review, and Indiana Review among others. She has received scholarships from Bread Loaf and the Port Townsend Writer’s Conference and an Amy Award from Poets & Writers. She holds an MFA in Poetry from Warren Wilson College.
