--I’VE BEEN TO THE MOVIES AND I KNOW HOW IT ENDS, BUT THE JOKE’S ON THEM

Do You Remember?

We talked of things unspoken,

our eyes doing the hard work,

fingers laboring in the moist

shadows our skins made

after making love. 

You pointed to the window,

to a cloud stamped and

sluggishly bobbing across the glass,

its shape a lion or

deer of some sort,

your eyebrows arched,

asking me to choose,

asking me, “Which, the deer or the lion?”

And so, we began again,

as innocent as the gazelle

nosing and chewing sweet savanna grass

while the lion circled the Acacia tree,

proud but patient, listening for

the final moan, the gazelle’s

last convulsive cry,

signaling the lion’s turn.