elephant

my elephant ears are big and floppy even though they don't belong to me
they belong to my elephant, elephant
elephant's sitting there like he doesn't even care it's a snow day
and outside the world is white like a bowl of vanilla ice cream, the kind without little black pieces in it

but its not summer and we don't have ice cream if it's not summer
cause it's already cold out
cold like my feet which kicked off their snowflake socks cause i don't want snowflakes on my feet or outside

they say the snow is pretty, look how pretty, do you want to go and play , you can wear my hat
we can have
hot chocolate

elephant wants me to go outside, he's never seen snow before because he's from a place where there are
no snow days
i wish i was an elephant

i wanted to go to school because i was going to show nina to elephant
very secretly because i don't know if maybe nina is scared of elephants, because they are so large
but i tell elephant all about nina, mostly because she smiles so much and elephants always like smiles

i like it when nina smiles at me
i like it when she laughs, and i can see the space in her mouth where she lost her teeth
i like it when she thinks i'm funny, like the time i told her i pretended elephant was a dog

which is silly really because elephant's ears are too big to be dog ears
(nina smiled when i said that)
i told elephant all about her after my bedtime story

he had his red scarf on and i jumped out of bed but the floor was so cold
they said i wasn't going anywhere today, it was too snowy and wouldn't it be fun to be home and
all i knew was that i was sad because today was special and i was going to show elephant my favorite smile

then even though i just turned four i cried
privately, in my bed, with elephant
who was very quiet

we eat breakfast and i play with my favorite train puzzle
elephant looks at the whiteness and he says we should play in the stuff that looks like ice cream but
i am busy being sad

then i say well just for a little while and i get my red jacket and my mittens and elephant sits in the window then he watches while i slide and jump
then i go inside and elephant gets hot chocolate on his trunk and i think i will tell nina about the snow tomorrow and i remember that i was smiling the whole time