LEOPARD

before
you go
soft toy
for me

and these words prove
beautifully redundant

let a
hawk
circle her
house

peep
through her window

with waiting, frustration, anticipated exertion
let those hawk wings expand
take the rest of
the bird with them
become
an eagle

but where is the songbird
she has been promised
the lark, the nightingale
she
composed arias for?

Where is the robin, that
feathered martyr
whose breast
bleeds a scarlet
that could not
be more true?

For want of these signs, she suffers
but the signs of
the world that wishes to
storm her
Princess castle, take her
make her woman
suffer to.

Lastly, leastly, look:
a leopard scratching at her door

already we signs the
leopard going Bengal, going
Siberian white tiger

its eyes
your eyes: look in the
mirror, dear and
you cannot help see

and there
my imagined predatory shape
behind you.