petrology
maybe you determined inert
at flatline maybe topography never
the way you wanted flat water
table immersing your mouth pointed
nose I studied petrology saw your
face in the rock
no I didn't
no
there is another name for this your inch- by-inch erosion without features you are a threat mass lodged so in my throat I can't speak we buried
you deep your tongue
become marble your brows
ossified
white of your rendered bone
unthinkable
our unwavering sentinel
where also this registers some level
your teeth keep you close now
breast of the earth
where I unearthly soak in
your sublimated sweat
acrostic for human-lion relations
“If a lion could speak, we could not understand him.”
-Ludwig Wittgenstein
Like any other polite predator,
if a lion could speak he’d tell me
of dirty water, rusted blood,
near-fresh kills to share with guests.
Broken bones his cutlery, we’d dine
under the sheer string quartet of flies, lie under
the stink of meat, blanketed by
the hot breath of dusk.
Even if I forgot all but the lust of the hunt,
a life spent at the tip of the spear,
the drum of blood in my ear
it's the nights I’d remember -
not heat-haze, not the glimmer of summer
gazelling away across the savannah.
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