for some it is hiding
in plain sight, in the living room, the 92 inch
Sony TV screen looking puny beside
and it is immaterial, by the by,
if it is an African or an Indian or
an English elephant, this rain-god watering
the plants in parks and in gardens, playing ball
with the brothers...all of which makes those
who can’t see the elephant very cross, hot
under the collar, all over.
But the elephant won’t take No
for an answer and soon it is chanting
morning noon and night, keeping people awake
even those who don’t accept
there is an elephant in the first place.
What on earth is that noise? It sounds like an elephant. It is one,
protest the Elephant Believers. Yet even they
feel disillusioned; and when the trail
of crumbs goes cold they fear he’s made off,
slipped away, gone like a Greenland glacier
or that elephant from A World-Renowned Menagerie
haunting a Gloucestershire field.
Cover photo credit: Polly Pullar
Jeff Skinner
Jeff’s poems have been published in anthologies and journals, most recently in Poetry News, Allegro, Drawn to the Light. He volunteers at his local food bank and in the Oxfam Bookshop, listens to a lot of music, watches football, reads, writes.