I’ve had no vodka tonight and yet you’d think
I’d seen pink elephants, or perhaps just
pink roses where there were none. There is
an elephant in the room, to be sure,
and I think he looks a lot like … well, you know
the type – beautiful books, dusty lips. Don’t see him?

It’s because he’s my elephant or, to be precise,
because he’s not. Mine. But then he is, and so,
what to ask him? What is the nature
of elephant skin? Thick? Obtuse?
Turning away arrows? Capable
of crushing intent, with that blind man’s foot,

while searching only for hay and peanuts, not
memories he’d have to not forget. Perhaps
there is only a crackled mirror
in the room, legends around the frame,
and in it only gray-skinned me looking back.

Not being the elephant, I’d like to forget,
leave if I could find
the door, but the trunk
snakes around me, pulls
me back. I would not be done
quite yet. I would run in the river bottoms.
I would unpack my suitcase in a moonlit room.