evolution

by Michael Minassian

“Weep for the man who has seen the elephant.” – Joan Colby

When I was a child, my parents took me to the Bronx Zoo. Somehow I slipped away from them. I passed by the Aviary and flapped my arms as if I could lift into flight. The birds twittered with what I thought was laughter. I entered the elephant enclosure and hid when my parents came looking for me. While the zoo keepers searched, the elephants formed a circle around me. I stayed several months and learned their language, a kind of low rumble which humans cannot understand.

Sometimes I wondered if my parents had stop looking for me, or if they had adopted a baby elephant, taking it home to our apartment on Belmont Avenue. The elephants taught me how to walk like them, how to behave in a group, how to respect elders, how to strip bark from a tree, and how to share food.

One day a group of visitors to the zoo spotted me hiding behind a tree. By this time, my clothes were in tatters, and winter was approaching, so I was glad to return home. My human parents took me back to our apartment, and we never visited the zoo again. I missed the elephants, and when I was older would often skip school and go to the elephant enclosure where I would pet their trunks through the iron bars until it was time to go home.

Now when I visit, all the birds in the Aviary fall silent at my approach. There are only two elephants left. I can tell they are sad by the way their trunks droop like overripe fruit. They barely look at me when I call to them. I offer them cantaloupe. They eat quickly and wander off.

I remember how the eldest elephant taught me how to communicate by seismic signals through my feet. Today all is quiet. This is not wholly imagined. A sparrow banished from the Aviary lands on the head of the female elephant. They seem to converse. There is no sound. Only a hole in the sky shaped like a vowel.

Three teenage girls in school uniforms join me at the fence. Their skin is gray and wrinkled. They kick dirt at me, laughing as they hold hands and skip away. Will humans become extinct before elephants? What would Darwin say?

Elephant brains are four times larger than human brains. I wonder why an elephant is not President of the World.

Photo of Michael Minnasian

BIO: MICHAEL MINASSIAN is a Contributing Editor for Verse-Virtual, an online poetry journal. His short stories have appeared recently in Bending Genres, Impspired, Flash Boulevard, Culterate, and 10 by 10. His most recent poetry collection A Thousand Pieces of Time was released in October, 2025 by Sheila-Na-Gig, Inc. For more information: https://michaelminassian.com