Sarah Giragosian: Zoo Dream

Below a vertical zoo, at the edge

of waking, I dream up a vast body

with a domed head, skin tougher than a tortoise’s,

and I —in the new tenancy of my elephantness—

test my trunk, a casual pendulum

as precise as a dragonfly’s landing,

and fan my ears like a lady shaking

out drapery.   Propulsion begins, as it must,

with the idea of mother; my own— I know—is away,

lost or exiled from this place of exile

and I must find her (laws of early love

transpose us). Beneath the crush of my legs,

the stairs sway and buckle, and each landing carries

a mewling and baying. Still I tramp for miles, searching.

Soon I am a pure tug, a handler’s dream.