Interiors

Elephants fill the rooms in this house:

try and get around them.

Tiptoe, tiptoe, squeeze; not quiet-as-a-mouse, because rodents

Provoke. Act normal.

Elephants fill the rooms in this house.

The list of things we cannot say grows longer every year.

But memorise it quietly, please.

Can you?

Elephants fill the rooms in this house.

I sometimes wonder if that's why they're endangered in Africa.

Your insistence on keeping a one-species zoo

Is cruel.

Elephants fill the rooms in this house.

I think we should consider a re-design (without them).

They don't fit, and I am sick of

Shovelling out manure.

Elephants fill the rooms in this house.

The neighbours are starting to talk

And isn't that your worst nightmare -

what they might say?

Elephants fill the rooms in this house.

But I don't think I'll keep up the family tradition

In mine. My home will be

A trampling-free zone.

Thank you for reading my poem - I'd really appreciate a heart if you liked it. Here are some others:

I meditate on the squeeze of your embrace (a Villanelle)

Working All Summer (a Solitary Bee Sonnet)

Know Your Solitary Bees (A Guide in Haiku)

Grey (on not being like them - like this)