An elephant went to bed and pulled a crazy quilt up under
its tusks.

But just as the great gray head began filling with the gray
wrinkles of sleep it was awakened by the thud of its tail
falling out of bed.

Would you get my tail? said the elephant to another
elephant also tucked up under a crazy quilt.

I was just in the gray wrinkles of my sleep, sighed the other
elephant.

But I can’t sleep without my tail, said the first elephant, I
like it stuck just above my anus; I feel more secure that way,
that it holds my anus from drifting out to heaven.

Analysis, meaning and summary of Russell Edson's poem Elephant Dormitory

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