Stephen Derwent Partington

Satao, Kenya’s last great tusker, was poached in 2014 Cowards, let us sing in dead Elmolo how the elephants have died. We thank the cavemen, that they drew them, that zoologists described them, for the photos of them herding which the tourists left behind, for who would ever, fools, believe us? Teeth from heaven to the ground!? I stretch my arm out like a trunk to palm the graveyard of its cranium; it’s how, I hear, they mourned. The brain within worked tools and language. I have none: a useless pen (it’s only good for drafting elegies) and even then, no words. We once had tuskers. Tell the birds!