The Beastly Bride

The only trunk she had

was filled with clothes.

Her nose was small,

the septum deviated,

she snored in her sleep,

but not loud enough to wake

her big husband.

The Elephant’s Bride

had never slept alone.

Sisters do not own

a single bed,

but sleep

cocooned, spooned

together,

head to heart, heart to head.

She was still a girl

when she was wed.

Now her gargantuan lover

was dead.

He who had been so huge,

was made small by illness.

His ears drooped,

his tail shed hairs,

his eyes seemed scaled,

gray skin paled.

Slump went his great back

And he dropped

right in his track.

She touched one long, cold, tusk,

whispered as he became a husk,

“Go, love, and I will follow.”

Better that than a dead elephant’s wife.

Widows in her world

had less than a half-life.

It took a derrick and ten men

to lift the corpse

onto the bier.

She set the fire,

then climbed on

the bed of flame,

folded her arms,

closed her eyes,

waited to claim

sweet heaven’s surprise.

But with a horrible crack

and a worse crash,

her hopes of heaven

were quickly dashed.

She arose, small,

gray

and covered with ash.

A miracle

or an allegory?

There is no moral here,

no jokes either.

You have a heart of stone

or else you are a believer.

I am neither,

just a teller of gossip,

a memorist, a liar.

Some of us bring water,

some bring alcohol

to fuel the funeral pyre.