Devour Not the Elephant

Poaching scene
crime scene carcasses of
dead rhinos and Savannah elephants

Precious the ivory tusks and horns
cut off severed

Two from a bull
raw and bleeding holes gouged
into Jumbo’s face

Swollen infected the wounds
every day bears the data

Data of body
feces hair and nails yellowish-white
bones push to the surface

In the green of leaves Earth
Air Fire Water

*

What is property?
property is the body Ears Trunk
Feet

The face half-severed precious
the ivory tusks and horns

Property is the body
mutilated burned Ears Trunk
Feet

Ears like human fingerprints
none are the same

Flapping their ears
blood circulates in the head
ears the shape of Africa

Two long pointed teeth stick out
of the mouth

The trunk is like a human arm
or the fingers of a hand
picking berries

Elephant corpses found drifting
In a creek yellowish-white bones

Push to the surface
In the green of leaves Earth
Air Fire Water

What is property? property
is the body a human arm or hand

My mother was sold
from me \when I could
but crawl

*

Among the stalls
piles of ivory trinkets bangles
and beads

Rows of Ivory carvings
of maidens monks and birds

Carcasses of dead rhinos
and Savannah Elephants carcasses
stripped of their skin

Burned mutilated saleable parts
hacked off

Ears Trunk Feet
the horns and tusks ground up
my body the bread my blood the wine

*

Disturbingly informative
an elephant savaged by poachers

Poison in the rivers
poison in the arrow heads following
the dying animal around

Following the dying animal around
every day bears the data

Data of body body of data
property is the body mutilated burned
carnal/spiritual

In the green of leaves Earth
Air Fire Water

The elephant is a nonpredatory mammal, a sensate being.
The poem intersects body and spirit — elephant desire,
with the function of marketing, production, distribution
and exchange of elephant and rhino body parts by human
predators.