Elephants trumpeting from a boxcar,
echoes ricocheting off vinyl siding & warehouse
walls. Never such a blaring before in the bedraggled
factory town. The sounds, eerie & regal,
 
still stuck inside my muscles like residue
of tree sap. Their trumpeting loosens
an unsolved puzzle inside me & even when
I move to suburbia I still hear their high-pitched,
 
messages from the borderlands. They cry
from leg chains, from cold bullwhips. 
Elephants, can you forgive us
for taking so long to hear you?