By Topsy
Mistranslated From the Titan by Dawn Raffel
he moment never ends. The killing is filmed in a flammable loop. You make me do tricks. Thunder of the earth above the roaring of the sea. You try to contain it in language, a word you have made, as if it were an instrument born of your hand, a sound you can buy with the purse of your lips, the curve of a horn, breath. I smelled the free sea, the salt dream of release. The perfume of elephant. Maggots come out of my trunk. Shall we do it again? From the sea of my mother’s womb, the steady solace of her heart, her gravid body, I was swept out to earth. I knew they would kill me. Rank hay. And here were the stables, the tents and the trailers, the pigeons, the rats that would gnaw at our feet, the tang of the horses, the tigers and lions, dung of all manner, the raw smell of men. The heart has been singed. You, who crush pulp into paper, mix resin and dye, the salt of tears, to force a new story onto the page. As if you own light. My ears, I am told, were as pink as the sunrise. As if the rain would kill you. Nights I rode trains with their music of mourning. As if you own wind. A last meal of carrots, seasoned with poison. Milk is a river, a sea, that flows neverending, eliding time. You, who smite giants, skinning the limbs, stilling the sap, cutting off roots that were fat with speech. Still, I can taste it, the sweetness, still in the sheltering shade of her flesh. Who will shatter the bones? Rip up the earth and tear out its riches, smelted and torched into chains and nails. Blood of my blood, bird of my soul. We speak beyond the edges of your limited senses. I wanted my mother. I woke to the sound of waters, as I had in the beginning. The current must flow in a single direction. You, who sell tickets to see me. Perhaps you heard the rumble. A foot will be severed in order to make an umbrella stand. I am here.
Translator’s note: Topsy, the “killer” circus elephant, was electrocuted on Coney Island January 4, 1903. The execution was filmed by Thomas Edison.
Dawn Raffel is the author of five books, most recently The Strange Case of Dr. Couney: How a Mysterious European Showman Saved Thousands of American Babies. Other books include two short story collections, a novel, and a memoir. Her stories have appeared in many magazines and anthologies, including NOON, BOMB, Conjunctions, Exquisite Pandemic, New American Writing, The Anchor Book of New American Short Stories, Best Small Fictions, and more.