Crowninshield just in port,
sailed to India and the Orient to bring back
perfumes,
spices,
silks,
and the elephant, Old Bet.
Her long trunk curls
warm & heavy on his shoulder, he
shrugs her
off now they are on
land
(He sold her to Bailey for a fair price).
He’s read she’s travelling in a circus
of four wagons,
a trained dog,
several pigs,
a horse, that Bailey
loved her so well he built
the Elephant Hotel.
Crowninshield voyages
back and forth to India
Bet
traverses
New England.
He thinks of her
often, how they shared
porter when clean water had run
dry; Bet uncorking
bottles with her nose, downed thirty
a day
(when he brought her to New York she was perfectly healthy).
The hanky in his fist is damp. Bet met a sorry end,
one shot
to
the eye,
he feels better
when he learns Bailey
erected a monument outside
his hotel.
Carved in wood it stands on a shaft
of dressed granite, on a tall column
the figure of an elephant.
