Poem: Hunted Lion

 

Hunted Lion

slow as tsetse sickness,

brassy fur wan,

 

a fugitive pants

under a cortege of vines,

 

no longer alert

for ibex or carabao,

 

or even the belch

of a poacher’s truck.

 

resinous eyes

once fierce to drive herds,

 

drift in a tide of glaze,

dim as they go,

 

congealing in the sights

of a rifle.

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