AQUATELOS A Thesis Presented to the Faculty ... - Cornell University

iii. Memory Like a Sieve
Edging the roofs, snaking forward on glassy bulbs of flanks,
the elephants inch their white bulk around.
They do a slow dance, grasping trunk to tail until their distinct
forms fade into a border humped above gutters.
Sun quickens them, makes their sunless hearts twitch
so much faster, spills tension into muscle.
By noon they cease moving, dazed with the sight of their own kind
sprawled before them to the horizon,
each wondering what if we are dead but unburied, alone
with the high vultures soaring beyond sight.
Once one decides this is so, he lets go.
The shrill zip of his hide scraping the side of the eaves.
The dangling half-breath of falling
flattened to a gasp by the crumple of impact.
Bones like icicles. The next elephant, with nothing to hold,
starts his slide.
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