Dan Albergotti
A Group of Elephants Is Called a Memory
More and more, memories of my mother
are like the brief glimpses you can catch
of an elephant standing alone in a small clearing
from your passing safari truck at the zoo.
In that hollow nave framed by trees,
the elephant might flap an ear as you pass
and might not, standing in profile as if anchored
to the spot. You may catch her eye, or think you do,
in those few seconds. The driver says he can’t stop
for photographs. Still, you have a moment to wonder
how long she’s there alone, where she goes at night,
before your rumbling truck is followed by another.
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Dan Albergotti is the author of The Boatloads (BOA Editions, 2008) and Millennial Teeth (Southern Illinois University Press, 2014), as well as three chapbooks from Unicorn Press: The Use of the World (2013), Of Air and Earth (2019), and Circa MMXX (2022). His poems have appeared in 32 Poems, The Cincinnati Review, Ecotone, Five Points, New Ohio Review, The Southern Review, The Best American Poetry, and two editions of The Pushcart Prize, as well as other journals and anthologies. He is a professor of English at Coastal Carolina University.
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