Love Poem: Elephant Leg
Sander Wolff Avatar
Written by: Sander Wolff

Elephant Leg

There’s a part of you 
I cannot see or touch.  

In the dark, alone, I know 
every curve of your body.  
I could sculpt you from memory.  
Each detail vivid in 
my mind’s eye.  

The baby nail on your baby toe.  
This neck that takes to kissing.  
I know the moment when your 
hip becomes belly.  
Just there.  

But there’s a part of you I 
cannot see or touch.  Hidden, I want to 
know it all the more.  
Behind your eyes, inside 
your heart, that essential 
you, separate from this 
fragile tissue hanging, draped, over bone.  

I watch you move when 
you’re not looking.  
Standing, your toes curling.  
Twisting the end of your hair while thinking.  
Asleep, I know your breathing.  
You hold the morning cup like a chalice.  
Little lines around your eyes deepen sometimes.  

These things are pieces of a whole I ache to know.
This elephant leg obscured by sightless eyes can 
be anything.  Groping blindly toward
the totality of you, revealed in fits and starts.

This life of mine no longer turned inward.
Every day I have new discoveries to make.