Pygmy Elephants 

While I sleep 
pygmy elephants 
journey across my bedroom floor.
They traverse the carpeted plains,
marching stoically, deliberately
through dust-bunny deserts
and undulating dunes of laundry
to the closed bedroom door
which towers the herd like a bridge. 
Under they go, 
the pygmy elephants,
into the hall and down the stairs to the mudroom
to drink from the puddles of melted snow
left there by my boots. 
The pygmy elephants fill their trunks 
over and over
until the water’s exhausted. 
Then, with laboured steps, 
they lumber back 
to the comfort of my bedroom 
where they nestle between cracks in the walls
to drift into sated slumbers 
before the sun begins to rise. 
Come morning there isn’t but a trace 
of the pygmy elephants 
or their arduous migration.
All that remains are my winter boots
sitting on the dry mudroom floor.

Ben von Jagow is a writer from Ottawa, Canada. His work has appeared in Passaic Voluspa, The Mindful Word, and The Literary Review of Canada. For more of Ben’s work visit benvj.com or follow him on Instagram: @aquacondor.