"Symbal" by Milena Makani
Ellen Kombiyil | The Elephant Is in Love with a Boy
There is a boy, tiny but round. Dressed in pale blue shorts, his hair is wet and combed, and his
hands, plump, smell of mashed bananas. He offers her, the elephant, a biscuit enrobed in specks of
brown sugar. The elephant remembers, is reminded, of stands of coconut, fronds at the edge of a
forest near the sound of open water, patches of light and dark through which she once walked,
bamboo stands that sprout and explode like a child’s doll with hair that can’t be combed. The
elephant remembers what it’s like to move without the clinking of metal, and she remembers this
boy–he was there–looking at her the way looking into lakes is an act of surrender. He looks into the
lakes of her eyes, which erases the gauzy wall between them: there is one lake and one thing to
remember, the eye is his eye is her eye is his mother’s brown sad remembered. The elephant in
sunlight glitzed all colors, not white nor gray, but dotted, not separate. There was once a colorful
elephant, the story began, and the little boy clapped his hands. He knows this one, he recites it at
nap time after the snack of bananas and graham crackers and a carton of milk, when he wants to lie
down and the carpet is not hard, not soft, is a forest floor, dappled with light.
hands, plump, smell of mashed bananas. He offers her, the elephant, a biscuit enrobed in specks of
brown sugar. The elephant remembers, is reminded, of stands of coconut, fronds at the edge of a
forest near the sound of open water, patches of light and dark through which she once walked,
bamboo stands that sprout and explode like a child’s doll with hair that can’t be combed. The
elephant remembers what it’s like to move without the clinking of metal, and she remembers this
boy–he was there–looking at her the way looking into lakes is an act of surrender. He looks into the
lakes of her eyes, which erases the gauzy wall between them: there is one lake and one thing to
remember, the eye is his eye is her eye is his mother’s brown sad remembered. The elephant in
sunlight glitzed all colors, not white nor gray, but dotted, not separate. There was once a colorful
elephant, the story began, and the little boy clapped his hands. He knows this one, he recites it at
nap time after the snack of bananas and graham crackers and a carton of milk, when he wants to lie
down and the carpet is not hard, not soft, is a forest floor, dappled with light.
Ellen Kombiyil is a visual artist, poet, and educator from the Bronx. Her latest poetry collection, Love as Invasive Species (Cornerstone 2024) is a tête-bêche exploring matrilineal inheritances. Her visual art has been displayed at Emerge Gallery and is published in Action Spectacle, Bear Review, DIAGRAM, TAB, and The Indianapolis Review and she has new poems appearing in Sixth Finch, Cherry Tree, Second Factory, and Tahoma Literary Review. She is a 2022 recipient of a BRIO Award (Bronx Recognizes Its Own) from the Bronx Council on the Arts, a two-time winner of the Mary M. Fay Poetry Award from Hunter College, a recipient of an Academy of American Poets college prize, and was awarded the Nancy Dean Medieval Prize for an essay on the acoustic quality of Chaucer’s poetics. A graduate of the University of Chicago and Hunter’s MFA program, is an adjunct assistant professor at Hunter College. Find her at www.ellenkombiyil.com.
Milena Makani, born in 1984 in Sofia, Bulgaria, is a German contemporary artist based in London, UK. Makani’s deeply psychological paintings depict inner landscapes characterized by layered textures, fluid forms and gradients. Employing acrylics, watercolours and inks on mineral stone sheets, she blends control and spontaneity through the interplay of organic process and manipulation. Makani lives with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome - a source of constant pain. Her works channel the mindfulness, gratitude and energy of her lived experience, as she investigates themes of resilience, serenity, joy, stoicism and fragility.
The German artist has exhibited her work in the UK, Bulgaria and Iceland and her paintings are featured internationally in various private collections.
The German artist has exhibited her work in the UK, Bulgaria and Iceland and her paintings are featured internationally in various private collections.
