Blinked

Occasionally the keeper's brush would kiss one
as he gingerly sidestepped clumps of dung
in his dance to sweep the yard, and furtively
he'd stoop and snatch the prize, slip it
into the pocket of his shirt: a shed lash,
winked free from the gray crepe eyelid
of one of the lumbering pachyderms
that shuffled across the earth, unaware of
the precious mote they'd lost, as he latched
the enclosure gate behind him.

Would he go on to tuck one of these hairs
into a folded sheet of onionskin,
then post it to a favored niece,
or bundle them together with a ribbon
and present them in a bristling bouquet
to a plain, shy young lady
whose windowsills were already crowded
with peacock feathers, tobacco twists of snakeskin
and a single rotten-rooted cougar fang?

Or would he keep them for himself,

a fistful of stiff whiskers protruding

from a souvenir zoo mug on his desk,
gathering dust, now retired from their duty

of  providing protection from flies

and wind-whipped specks
to a placid eye that spent its days
slipping its gaze between their fragile bars?