The Saddest Mammoth...

I saw the end                                 in my parents' eyes,

long before I fell today.

They looked at me as if 

       “We made you for a world 

         that will not stay...”

I did not know what I was missing,

Just watched the water—

                                          sometimes enough

To shake the chamber 

of my deep nose in rapture—

But never to fully purify that sour, foam-lipped slush.

I saw the pattern,                                    like my parents had;

Continued watching,                                 like they had done;

Wanted to make a child,                                 like I had been.

But she and I were too,      too weak      to create another one.

My parents did not    simply die;             they tremble-legged

And face-first              crumpled,

Rolling up their                dust-yellow                         eyes.

  Then others'                             children,

    too hungry                      to grow.

     Then my cow,

      who'd made me                                                        a bull—

     I watched her fur split      

                                                like   soft fruit             under flies.

          And then I felt                    what I had                     watched.

           With no one                     watching              me           to learn.

           “So a mammoth                                                              breathes;

            Breathe beyond          my                                 life.           Last...”

             No: I slumped         over                                     mixed   bones,

               Final                                                                   in    the herd,

                           And        dizzied  down       to join them,

                                                  Every other in the past