Rochelle Owens: 'Devour Not the Elephant'

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 nonpredatory 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.”]