1 Jungle
1 Family of elephants, with calf
4-8 Men
Guns
Spears
Pay off the local officials. Enter the jungle like a prowl of cats. Circle the elephants at their favorite mud hole, where the calf will roll in the ocher water with a turtle-lipped smile, and his mother and aunties will brush, with their trunks, his face and chin in affection. Taking care not to harm the calf, shoot the mother. Shoot the aunties. Take the calf to a camp and enclose him in a cage slightly smaller than his body. Ignore his bleating mourning cries. Begin training. Jab his young skin with spears. Do this while he is in his cage, and he will think he is small and weak. If you are successful, he will believe this forever. Like any animal, any child. If you are not successful, he will eventually break his chains, eat the crops of a nearby farm and be shot. When this occurs, reenter the jungle and capture
Jen Ashburn recently completed her MFA at Chatham University in poetry and creative nonfiction. She has work published or forthcoming in Grey Sparrow; Pretty Owl Poetry; Anak Sastra; The Poet’s Billow; Puff Puff Prose, Poetry and a Play Vol. II; and the anthology Make Mine Words (Trinity University Press). She lives in Pittsburgh.
