found an elephant skull at the foot of the garden
beyond the radishes and cabbages
a bull male, disembodied, discarded
stripped of flesh and bulk a bleach-white bulb so I dug a deep hole- to plant an elephant
pack terra firma firmly
over pachyderm- and pat
water liberally- torrents
that relieve the Serengeti
of its aridity give life to
parched mammalian bone
poachers came by increasingly
trampled the hydrangeas
unsettled the rockery rested rifles against the trunk
of a gnarled oak struck matches against its skin
surveyed the shoots emerging
from ripening earth as they smoked
rows and rows of carrot tails
embryonic trunked-fronts waiting on a harvest of elephants for unbroken days of sun
I let them roam, competitors
for a prize marrow watched them salivate, seeing
each elephant grow into a potential best in show
they called my garden ‘L’Eden Blanc’
White Eden sensed, heady as blossom a downpour to end all drought but these tusks would not be ivory
these tusks were tungsten
I righted the panda, added a wider diet
lust to its lustre, sometimes nature
needs a helping hand, to take a stand
or bat away the death-grip of man
the look on the face of the first poacher to notice! he tapped, stunned, the arm of the man closest
pointed to the glint of gun-metal aimed at his slight, sunken chest sixty barrels breaking topsoil shanty towns packed up in minutes I spent the next two hours combing out footprints collecting up cigarette butts from the gazebo
one terrible morning I’d come to see tungsten was coveted elsewhere- darts players
woken by foreboding jangling- Bobby George’s bling rattling by my window- I pulled back the curtains to see Michael Van Gerwen aiming a blunderbuss at the herd his accuracy, tragically, unerring
I dressed, heavy hearted hauled my body down the hall past vast aquaria of polar bears
stopping at the last, in order to watch two females force water
through gills, turn and spin like gymnasts loitered until my spirits lifted nearly new
then turned on my heels, spun like them
began work on elephants: mark II
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