elephant keeper

i have the sense that terrible news
happened last night but if i don't look at it
then i can just tend my elephant in peace.
no one knows i am an elephant keeper.
i assume i am not alone. someone of us 
are born with something gigantic 
that follows us asking to be fed. i named
the elephant when i was little but the name
no longer suites him so i just call him,
"elephant." sometimes, when i am feeling
particularly lonely, i will call him,
"sister." i have a suspicion that my brothers
have elephant too. i am getting to the age where
i am worrying about what will happen
when my parents die & the house is still there
full of all their skin. i saw my father's elephant once.
he keeps it in the garage. he sings to it. 
he used to sing to me. i was convinced he was 
john lennon when i was very small. thank goodness
he is not that would be upsetting. i have not
had the courage to ask my father, "will you sing
nowhere man to me?" but i crave it every night.
the news breaks a window. there is a lost elephant
weeping on the roof. maybe it is my partners.
in the end i am selfish about my creature. 
during college when i kept almost jumping
off the top of the building, i promised the elephant
i would deliver him to a zoo nearby. the lie stretched
until we talked about it but neither of us believed it. 
sometimes a fantasy is just a tool to keep going.
we could just never open the internet again. i could
for the first time ride the elephant. flaunt him 
& his massiveness. tell him to scream at the september sun. 
i hide him behind the oldest sycamore tree in our yard. i bring
him a loaf of banana bread & we eat together. 
do secrets keep us human or keep us from it?
i wish i could trade places with him. be the hidden
monster instead of the singing one.