elephants don't need keys

Elephants on the steps
two crazy women next door
Ophelia and Miss Junior Dracula
fifty-years, teens never outgrown
the daughter, already vintage spinster quality at twenty
the chronological elder sports ill assorted clothes
salt and pepper pigtails and rose colored tights
the generation jumping kid prefers gothic,
decked out in silver piercings and common run-of-the-mill black
their trousseaux of keys rattle in the four locks
against the outside world our heroines are locked in, they barricade themselves,
and when locked out, become out the building's common terror
so to leave, even with one barricaded indorrs, left behind
bolts get moved from the inside
the same get key-jangling locked from the outside
two dozen times morning noon and night,
jingle, clang, click, clang-clang
damn her for locking the top one again!
         (after opening three
         stuffing the keys back into the pits of the bag
         and then trying to turn the handle to open)
(afterwards the trumpeting disputes are memorable)
inevitably, the rug-rat with the tiny bladder strikes again
and more elephants on the steps
the mutt must go out…and back in again

thumping down four floors
only to thump up four floors five minutes later (small bladder…)
ninety-two crashes (twenty three per floor)
         (the neighbors dream of installing a doggy basket and a pulley
         suspended from the guilty fourth floor window)
twenty three crashes per floor
then oh eardrum (thump) misery! when they Daisy and Dizzy go out together
indistinguishable from a herd of elephants
never staying gone long, by one or by two
forgotten post office trip
forgotten car keys, office keys
up and down, down and up
forgotten street phone
forgotten anything,
everything beneath the sun needs remembering
one crazy woman, then the other crazy woman
"oops the mailbox!"
another heavy hoofed round trip
later, it's "you forgot the bread" (she screamed)
         (I make mention here
         of paper thin neighboring walls
         so the screaming feminine discord
         is worthy of the worst vaudeville
         Mahler usually drowns it pleasantly,
         but oh! the Saturday morning ritual
         imagine eight o'clock vacuuming the carpet on the walls!)
and thump…
thump…thump…THUMP
so it goes with the daily elephants on the steps
         (one is allowed to wonder : how can this be?
         with such turbulent exercise
         couch potatoes we cannot see)
mama wears heels, weighs ninety pounds
but the noise of her feet is elephantesque
dainty daughter, rebellious in mountain hiking boots
thumps here and there,
but at three in the morning
the only possible care
for just one less nightmare
is to shoot the elephant on the stair

the moral of this complaint :
pachyderms should never live in apartment buildings
stairs induce forgetfulness
to remember
elephants need a simple house with grass in gardens



         elephants don't need keys
         24 march, 2005