Words for a Friend

many happy returns

I set the lioness loose today,
Watched as she leapt away from me
And pounced playfully in the fields,
Sunlight kissing and caressing her fur.

I set the lioness loose today,
Watched in familiar detachment as she stalked away.
Only when I felt joy blossom in my chest
At her return
To my vulnerable side
Did I realize-

I set the lioness loose today,
Watched as she left and returned
Absentmindedly, belatedly, without care
And kept to me without command-
Not once did I think she'd relinquished
This strange bond between predator and prey;
Not once did my trust waver-

She set the gazelle loose today,
Pranced without a backwards glance away;
She bounded with kin of her kin,
Devoured the dogs and the djinn.
She kept to the crowds
While the gazelle kept to shadows and stormy clouds.

And when they returned to fields together,
The lioness brought a carcass,
The gazelle a bloody tail,
And the sky a gentle downpour.