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On the Bones of an Endangered Species

Nancy Jo Allen

Cradling an ivory tusk,
a Zimbabwe National Park
official’s face says it all. He
holds but one. Behind him in cubicles
as close as any mausoleum’s
ossuary rest hundreds more.
In recent years, poachers
have scoured African bush
culling gray-skinned pachyderm
by thirty percent.

A voice across the room
interrupts my thoughts. It
is the evening news anchor
who reports of yet more scandalous
behavior from a tall, orange,
thin-skinned man who trumpets
like elephants in death throes.
He stands on the bones
of an endangered political party
caring not that this species
may not survive, and continues
shoveling dirt. Darwin’s theory
of evolution proposes incremental
changes, but this is radical.

In despair, I put down the newspaper,
turn off the television,
and reach for a resin elephant
that rests on my desk.
My daughter bought it in Thailand
where a dictatorship
took over to save the nation
from short-sighted politicians.
I rub the elephant’s trunk for luck.

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