The elephants touched me
as if I was their own
carried my bones, heart and ribs,
back, to the countryside,
under the shadow of ficus trees.
I placed my ear against the great root,
heard myself as a child,
a boy playing in the fields,
playing with such violence.
‘It is me’, the boy says,
‘the one you forgot to bury;
the orphan rummaging around,
singing out-of-key songs with long breath,
lullabies to keep you from waking.’
