I ask the lion lurking beyond the irascible tempt of longing

     to open his mouth and come closer, closer. I put my head

inside his jaws, feel the moist smite of hot breath against

     my cheeks, catch a shiver of antelope blood on my tongue.

I call him King, ask if he prefers a different name, if

     the unspeakable loneliness of kings ever makes him wish

he lived elsewhere, perhaps in a luxury loft in some sprawling city,

     had an office job that paid a touch too well, could ride

a train to and from work, nurse a planter of grass on his balcony

     and sweet-dream it into the Serengeti whenever he felt

a pang of homesickness blooming in his gut. I turn to look down

     his throat, expecting to see a pink fleshy cave of

hunger. Instead, I find a round window revealing the peppery

     blackness of night, a host of giddy stars shooting

through the vastness. I forget my life is hovering on the wild

     edge of slaughter, then remember. I close my eyes,

expecting each passing second to be my last, for the lion’s teeth

     to tear into my face, crush my skull like a cantaloupe.

I wait until I become a part of him, until the sky cowers into itself,

     swallowing me like a tooth. Soon I sense him crying,

a child’s soft, voiceless sobbing, a song. I open my eyes, see

     I’m wearing a watch, sitting alone on a park bench in the dying

orange of evening, feeding stale bread to a posse of pigeons,

     while above me an airplane crashes into the sun.