Art and Poetry / The Value of Ivory

The collage that I made is meant to show distance and makes a good companion for my poem, ‘The Value of Ivory.’

The Value of Ivory

A mathematician calculates
the elephant’s wish
to walk in the shade,
makes a square
of the sun’s naked form
and a long evening shadow.

When I think of solutions
I imagine a circle,
the arc of a life
that ends
in a field of pachyderm bones,
then keeps moving forward.