Ellora Sutton
Big Mary
In 1916 a circus elephant called Big Mary was hanged in Erwin, Tennessee, for killing her trainer.
Named after Jesus’ mama
hanging
like a nude,
back when naked women were all flesh,
wrinkled, your bones
popping
like peanut shells
and the town’s children
with their open mouths.
When did you become meat?
Five tons tangled
in trapeze wire. Too big
for their tiny bullets.
The sad clown of the crane,
skeletal and groaning
the tracks. When his neck snapped
I hope the blood was hot
as Sumatran rain.
Named after Jesus’ mama
hanging
like a nude,
back when naked women were all flesh,
wrinkled, your bones
popping
like peanut shells
and the town’s children
with their open mouths.
When did you become meat?
Five tons tangled
in trapeze wire. Too big
for their tiny bullets.
The sad clown of the crane,
skeletal and groaning
the tracks. When his neck snapped
I hope the blood was hot
as Sumatran rain.
Biography
Ellora Sutton, 22, is a Creative Writing MA student from Hampshire, England. She has been published in Poetry Birmingham Literary Journal, The Cardiff Review, The Hellebore, Re-side, Honey & Lime, and Poetry News, among others, and won the 2019 Hampshire Prize, part of the Winchester Poetry Prize. Her debut chapbook is forthcoming from Nightingale & Sparrow. She tweets @ellora_sutton. You can read some of her work at ellorasutton.com.
