They must fear us the way we fear\nsnakes\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n
poisonous and skulking in the\nbrush,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
a creature so low to the ground we\nthink<\/p>\n\n\n\n
we could trample it before it\nstrikes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
& aren\u2019t humans a history <\/p>\n\n\n\n
recorded somewhere in elephant\nlore,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
etched in the scrolls of their\ntrunks<\/p>\n\n\n\n
where eons are counted inward like\ntree lines<\/p>\n\n\n\n
to a primitive, guttural warning?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Drought and lions are lesser gods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They\u2019re not as cruel. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s one thing to be hungry <\/p>\n\n\n\n
and another to kill for profit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now, imagine the shape of a curse,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
its heft and purity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Route it into a socket <\/p>\n\n\n\n
in the skull. Give it roots <\/p>\n\n\n\n
of living tissue. Make it valuable,\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
accessible to the desperate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Let it be <\/p>\n\n\n\n
scrimshaw-worthy and perfect<\/p>\n\n\n\n
for piano keys, buttons,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
and billiard balls,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
the carved handles of cutlery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Piece it in among sleeping\nfamilies\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n
great herds in tumbled clusters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Let its ribs score the dust<\/p>\n\n\n\n
in moon-sliver and flare, <\/p>\n\n\n\n
a fine horn already bloodied with\nlight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Laura Sobbott Ross <\/strong>has worked as a teacher and a writing coach for Lake County Schools and was recently named as Lake County\u2019s first poet laureate. Her poetry appears in many journals, including Blackbird, Florida Review, and 32 Poems. She was a finalist for the Art & Letters Poetry Prize and won the Southern Humanities Auburn Witness Poetry Prize. Her poetry chapbooks are A Tiny Hunger<\/em> and My Mississippi<\/em>. A third book, The Graffiti of Pompeii<\/em>, was released in December. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" They must fear us the way we fear snakes\u2014 poisonous and skulking in the brush, a creature so low to the ground we think we could trample it before it strikes. & aren\u2019t humans a history recorded somewhere in elephant<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":384,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9926],"tags":[22269],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1850"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/384"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1850"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1850\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1853,"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1850\/revisions\/1853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}