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
[N.B. To which she adds,
in correspondence: “The elephant is a non-predatory 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.”]
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