Elephants

By Matt Thomas

(borrowing a line from Emily Dickinson)

A sun catcher 
limiting the spectrum
to a few colors,
when a pale stripe on the carpet
holds them all

The macrame elephant in the room

While I knit, clicking, scraping,
needles louder than the obvious
feeding the world, teaching it tricks
unwilling to believe
that each thing is equal
to its naked light

And with a Blonde push

a totem is chosen. Once selected it can’t be undone, cemented every gift giving holiday, confirmed by collection during each visit to your room until it is a daemon accompanying you into adulthood, clinging like all assumed inevitabilities such as a once honest delight in your own imagination, a fantastic animal as a proof of nature’s promise to amuse, surprise, extended even to yourself now set, rigid, staring wherever it’s fixed eyes are pointed, striping the carpet with reflected sun in a way you’ve learned to expect, which you used to think of as something if not wonder but have since realized is nothing and aren’t those animals wise, members of close-knit communities, fierce and clever creatures? So your spirit, on some unplumbed level must describe those characteristics you think watching the dust filter down from where you’ve stirred it considering your possibilities, your elephants.


Matt Thomas is a smallholder farmer, engineer, and poet. His recent work can be found in Cleaver Magazine, The Thieving Magpie, and Common House. Disappearing by the Math, a full-length collection, was published by Silver Bow in 2024. Cicada, Dog & Song, a second full-length collection, will be published by Serving House Books in 2026. He lives with his family in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.