Become the Lion

We keep my sister alive by force,

pin her down and nurse her with raw

eggs from the chickens that did not drown

and milk taken from a goat staked

to the ground. The dull tolling of the bell

around her neck speaks as she moves.

Here, I am here. She wanders to the river,

and we find her. In a tree, singing

to a starling, we find her. We dig a grave

for the missing body, but nothing

consoles her. In mourning, the cure

is the sickness. A year ago, a lion

took our mother as she tended the fire.

This hunger bewilders me. We found half

of her bones and buried her

uneaten heart in a dead cub's rib cage.

When we returned three days later

we saw no bones, no heart, only tracks

in the sand leading east. Ghost me. Fossil me.

Resurrect me near dawn. We're always at the mercy

of one menacing grace, one rite, an art

that makes us suffer twice. At night we wait

with out knives where the tall grass begins.

We will kill it or die or become the lion.

Source: Our Lady of the Ruins (W. W. Norton and Company Inc., 2012)