The Lioness

No one knew she was a lioness, at first--

It happened by degrees.

The other girls did not have

Teeth as sharp and white as hard ghosts;

The boys could not stalk and kill

Like she could.



In time,

Her own family locked their doors

And began greeting her

With the sound of cocked rifles.

So she wandered

Like a crescent moon across the summer sky.



She was the only lion in her entire range--

All through the close sultry nights, she hunted alone,

Taking hoof and horn until she was marked

Like a woman with tattoos.

In the day,

She had dreams that she was back in school,

And that she she had shown up naked;

Then upon waking, surrounded by dust and flies,

She really was naked

And still alone.



The land rovers come sometimes,

And the people with cameras--

They say,

Look at her,

So strong, so beautiful;

But she slips away into the bush.

She searches for any glimpse of a particular tawny shade,

But finds only hard dry dirt and roads to nowhere.



She can do things none of the girls she grew up with can do--

She is more striking than any of them,

In her own singular, wild way.

She is the only lion in her entire range,

And through the endless nights

And the killing, solitary days,

Being loved by some distant, feral god is not nearly

Not ever

Enough.

________