Hua! The mahout's toes tap Kai-moon's scabby ears
That flap like rudders in the slipstream heat.
The jungle hits you with a wall of warmth.
Elephant hide feels bullet proof,
A bursting horse hair sofa
Being carried on Kai-moon's back
Is to brush the treetops on a moving mountain,
Each ponderous thigh creaks in its curtain of skin.
Her footprints gouge out bowls in the ochre mud.
We reach a pool that is mosquito heaven.
The horizon heaves,
Kai-moon has stopped to drink.
The mahout nudges her and down we sink
Into the chocolate pool through man-high reeds
Like a house sucked into quicksand.
The water's now a handspan from my feet.
Burned charcoal-black beneath the tropic skies,
This Thailand matriarch enjoys her dip.
Her drowned trunk periscopes up,
Snorkels and squirts,
Swallows the murky water.
I pray she doesn't develop the urge to wallow.
She doesn't. Wet and dripping she emerges
Into the scorching day,
Swaying into the steaming, humming leaves.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem