Back to Issue 6.

Imago Dei

Sandra Fees

Some images don’t leave you
like the young elephant
slumped in child pose
in the foreground
back legs splayed
one front leg tucked beneath
right ear draping
across the body
like a pewter cape.
The ear, shaped
like the African continent
covering the face of the dead.
They say elephants grieve
They say elephants,
like humans,
can recognize themselves.
The magnificent
carved mirror of life
reflecting Imago Dei,
the illusive white tusk
that curves toward scrub
the pachyderm of creation.

about the writer

Sandra Fees resides in Reading, Pennsylvania, and was named Berks County Poet Laureate in 2016. In 2017, she had chapbooks published by Five Oaks Press and Finishing Line Press. Her recent work appears in the anthologies, Undocumented: Great Lakes Poets Laureate on Social Justice and Bards Against Hunger, Pennsylvania, and is forthcoming in SOFTBLOW and The Aurorean.