Topsy
by Peter Mladinic
My dark side isn’t as dark as
Thomas
Edison’s.
Edison gave us light,
and for that like any sane person
I’m down on my knees thanking
him.
But what about Topsy
the elephant?
A barker or some such shoved a lit
smoke, the orange tip up
Topsy’s trunk
and
Topsy hurt the barker,
crushed his foot or just sprained his foot.
For that Topsy, outside a tent,
chained
standing
but immobile,
got electric
bolts shot through her.
She was wired, it’s on YouTube, smoke
rising, the elephant’s ponderous
fall,
all because Edison tried
something out.
Afterwards
he celebrated the execution,
broke out the champagne.
Hooray for advancement!
He shook hands with circus higher ups
and ones who did the dark work.
Peter Mladinic’s fourth
book of poems, Knives on a Table, is available from Better Than Starbucks Publications.
An animal rights advocate, he lives in Hobbs, New Mexico.