The Tusker

The tusker is now visible
against a wet green background.
The forest officials form a palisade.
A single dose of the tranquilizer
cannot sedate the black vigor.
He resists even the booster doses.

The rain showers pain.
*Kumkis march
toward the tranquilized tusker.
He stands
where his mother turned a carcass.
This is his favorite hangout,
a tribesman intones.
A honeycomb of silence:
cells are full of emotion.

Men skin and squeeze the woods,
yet the elephant is charged with
straying into the inhabited area.

The tusker loses
not only the paranormal
or infrasonic
communication with his mother.
He fulminates in the enclosure of the truck.
Memories can never be relocated.

*Kumkis are the elephants used for capturing
or herding wild elephants in conflict situations.