Straw-Fitted Elephants Poem by Salik Shah

Occasionally a mirror reflects
out of boredom a dreamy face,
two eyes glittering with life
and a paper-creased forehead,
as I flip, zoom, turn, and pinch,
and shift my attention
from the gorilla screen
to five straw-fitted elephants,
riding an Indian saucer,
honking a wind chime
with their baby trunks.

Twenty-five centuries of space
and time trapped inside a library
of a gold-teethed memory chip.
Isn't it amazing?
A time machine made out
of zeroes and ones entirely!

Our existence has reduced to binary digits,
to be summoned by strangers at their will;
awakened by man's memory,
his loneliness and her curiosity.

-

"Straw-Fitted Elephants" first appeared in Strange Horizons. It is part of Salik Shah's first poetry collection "Khas Pidgin" available on Amazon Kindle.