What Elephants Remember

[billy]

why did you get rid of matriarch?

V. 3

What Elephants Remember

Behind the maps to water holes,
one matron keeps locked in drawers [a matriarch works better i think]
photographs of her mother's
bone and silent ivory. i think the edit in this stanza went a tad to far

To a calf, those tusks had hung
overhead like strokes of thunder comma after overhead i think
chiseled from a cloud of grey,

stiffened into marble headstones
at the grave. The softened blades
fed her mother when the fields not sure if the enjambment works here

dried, and soothed her jaws when passing
teeth too old to grow again;
held her head when death refused. i think this stanza is superbly done

Queens cannot give back a crown,
just a name to those buried
in Uganda grass, not knowing
how it hurts to forget. strong closing that works well.

i think the edit as a whole works okay though i'm not keen on the edits n the 1st stanza. it just feels like you lost your head a little there