[Critique Group 1] Leonard's comments on Martia

[tuchyner5 at aol.com]

This is a very powerful piece. The questionsthat are generated are a big part of its power. But even without the questions,its emotionally powerful   




 


Ellephant Bones

Marcia J. Wick, The Write Sisters

October 2018

Word Count:  116

 

 

I grip the pain like an old love letter, 

Torture myself with the cruel hurt. 

I hold on hard to the cold memory,

Relive my disbelief and angst.

preferI a word like dread It sounds better to me.



 

You mailed me elephant post cards from Africa;

Dueto the specificity of this line, I believe this is an historicall  fact rather than a metaphor.



You courted me for years with love notes fromafar.

I painstakingly arranged a poster montage;

I framed the mammoths to welcome you home.

 

I watched as you destroy the evidence, 

Shouldn’t‘destroy also be in past tense?



Evidenceof what? Evidence that he loved you? There is a whole story here, no doubt. Thequestion the line leaves is very powerful.



As you dismantled and mangled the post cardcollage, 

Wow!What made him so angry?



Insisting you could make it better,

Claimingyou would restore its life.



NowI’m really confused.  What were hismotives? Was he too stupid to know that when you say you can make a heart feltgift  that was given to you, better, Youare really tearing  the guts out of thegiver? That is dismissal  andbelittlement in the extreme. Is that what you are saying?



 

You ripped the herd apart as I mourned. 

Itseemes he even belittled the grief you were going through. Was that cruelty orstupidity. I would ask him, “What happened to yhou to make you this way?”



You trampled attempts to preserve the time.

Doesthis mean  he didn’t even allow your memoriesof the  goodd  times?



You buried the elephant bones in a closet. 

Ibelieve this last line is metaphor.  Ormaybe it is factual as well.  Are therereal pictures of the elephants he saw in Africa.?Or maybe even bones?  Anyway, he swept it all under a rug.



The graveyard haunts me still.

I’massuming  the grave yard is in your headonly, at this point. 



 

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