mother told me about the baby
elephant in the Chinese zoo

who was rejected by his mother and cried
for the next five hours. animal-well

of childhood. an animal of grief. I’m O
negative, I told her, the universal

donor. I’ll need a shot on the 28th
week and another one after. to this

she warned me about the body,
poison in its lack, how mine

wasn’t water, could reject
what it carries, attack

the blood. Keep it

secret, she said, like a scar
behind clothing. Wear safety

pins to pierce the evil eye, dull
metal fighting a stranger’s

severe will. Don’t cut
your hair, veins and skin

are keratin, a kerosene
that lines the light inside, that will

not let the water in. but when
Persephone was taken,

Demeter wept autumn rain,
and when her daughter stayed

away, the mother’s tears froze
into ice caps, kept falling as hard

hail, silver sleet, or soft snow
when she grew too tired

to grieve. but the mourning
customs of elephants

surpass the gods and the young
returns to its mother’s

corpse, inspects it with her trunk,
and learns how grief outlasts

the waxen body, how light
ignites such water into blood.