You know good and well you can’t be out here
in the dark morning to take in
the moon—full as the bowl of light
attached to this police cruiser. Like a grayed
elephant shoots air through its trunk
before it charges off to safety
from a mouse in one of those old black
and white cartoons, you shriek
in a debutante’s pitch,
even though, there are reports,
you are as large as an elephant.
Car thefts in the area,
the man in blue explains after
he asks, “Where do you think you’re going?”
It’s unusual to see your kind walking
at this hour. You’re an elephant
who’s really just a man sweating away
in a mascot’s costume. You mumble
an address; you fumble
for an address that isn’t your address
but mine. Oh, you’ve done it now—
don’t say anything else. Let me
take over this body; soften what letters
will bend—I am a poet after all.
Don’t worry. You’ll see. He’ll wish us
a good morning and let us go,
after he bends us over the black hood.
from Fantasia for the Man in BlueFind more by Tommye Blount at the library
Copyright © 2020 Tommye Blount
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Four Way Books.