(for Joseph Carey Merrick and after the film by David Lynch)
it seemed to him that he should be
the same as others
that he should lay down his head
at Bethel and see the heavens open
the angels descend on ladders
filaments of the stars.
how hard his pillow why would it matter
if he could dream God was not far
oh from the mocked misunderstood
the misshapen vessel that he was
lumbering amid the tiaraed.
flocked to by the tittering crowds.
feted and lovely the center of all praise
he knew he knew he would never be but leprous-
lonely in his days beyond all human anguish to withstand
and in his carnival life abandoned
so ridiculed the elephant man I see him
at the end on a silken pillow sink
as if to say, just once let me be like them
with a dreamlike visage, brokenness
the final snap of the knotted thread he almost sped
into the arms of the crucified Lord.
mary angela douglas 27 august 2019
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