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

Go

Rush
with a flushed face and a particular brightness that electrifies
past gray, past drab, alongside the most swirling wind
dash toward the
iridescent white, diamond-faced,
leave behind
what'd you forget
nothing
pass swiftly by yesterday and
run with frozen air in your lungs by those hunched in improbable misery
through faded streets and let eyes snap open again,
take a long long breath of around you
which possibly could be bad it's real so enjoy it
take it in
and go

Knowing

Traced
I can see the faint outlines upon the shiny desk
The notes and hearts and wishes
I know well
the trappings the hints
made by hands over the years,
the simple curves of the letters positively bursting with the effort poured into them
are a reminder
still hear a sigh as a dream hits the floor, and
Then the one metallic shard of the mirror
        that still held hope
                 hurts you a little
I know well the wonder: does it matter?
I know well the wanting
Arching a broken back to hold onto residual dreams
though the gold stops glittering
I can still taste the longing, still see the last trace

Scattered

He
Writes
Words all across himself
Strews the alphabet painstakingly upon his skin
Lets the sentences fall from
His one ballpoint pen, a gift from a guard who needed to do some thought of good one day
This man
Sits, stands
Twists like a cyclone into any shape
Careful not to squander
His precious canvas
He gives each word, each syllable, a
Caressing attention as a mother gives a child
(He forgets what that is) 

He writes
Not as a man who needs to remember the milk
Nor as one who, bored, doodles upon their smooth skin
--Would he had that ink to waste--
But as himself, spilling his very soul onto his wrinkled, weary self
Pitch-black ink marching words the
Only thing to keep him chained and fettered here
In what may as well be Hell
He improbably longs for a staying, a purpose, a legacy
And he never goes out in the rain
He does not want to be washed away.

It's Time

Scent November in the wind, 

the darkness can envelop us now. 

Think back and further back, and 

to a different smile and a different thought 

what were 

we thinking 

and are we right now... 

Is right now right now? 

Wind swirls 

it has arrived, that certain sigh and certain caress 

and back into dim times we can hardly remember remembering

minds drift, buffeted back into the present

To the reality of retrospect and hindsight

And the warmth of today

Dynasty

Born on some faraway rugged shore
You cried and
harmonized with the shrieking birds
Fled to a tower monolith, locked in dark for a crime you couldn't explain with toys
And flourished there as you began to understand
Thanked your father on bended knee when he showed you
the deceit and lies and threatening flirtation
Shattering the innocence you never could have had anyway
You grew with an empire built on splintered principles and trying to be more
Grew into the glory and fanfare that was your inheritance
Took ahold
(when the leader could no longer stand that fateful morning)
Grasped the strength and power and bloodstained steel of your birthright
And rode,
Always forward
To satisfy the need for those things you never really understood
Looking for approval from some
god you didn't know how to believe in
And fulfilling a craving,
                   not your own
to keep the lines strong

Falls

Tired autumn clouds lie 

Underscoring the too-vibrant, don't-waste-a-minute sky 

As breezes with a familiar tang crumple another leaf corpse into 

Cracked asphalt, 

Suspended in auburn 

                              A wine-colored, brusque syrup of 

Waiting hunched in a halfway 

For the last piano key up-down fanfare of frost 

And no more of the matte-finished summer farewell 

We wait here, a poised kind of stable

Would you refute the irrefutable? 

Try to rebuild as the original Rome, stressed and stretched, finally falls? 

But as we wait for our empire-kingdom-russet

to drift to the ground and for the painters to retire to craving vibrancy once again 

Feast your eyes on this gleam, this harvest, this splendor,

and look out at how blue the ocean is