stone lion

for sacrifice of symmetry,
elegy to escape, 
last night we noticed
just one of the neighbors
stone lions had run away.
cracked from his pillar,
his brother poised &
blank-eyed. am i my brother's
keeper? the prints were left
everywhere, neon & blue-- 
bio-luminescent language.
stamped across 
the side of the house, 
on the inside of the mailbox &
tiny across the pink 
bleeding heart flowers.
i pick some just to rip
them in two & somewhere 
a bird falls from a tree, dead.
we all know each flower
in the heart of a song bird.
it's autumn anyway. 
i wanted you to sleep so
that i could really hunt.
you don't know what lions
are capable of.
so i left both of our bodies
in the bed sheets, 
crawled out the window 
with a paring knife
in my teeth. he wasn't
hard to track, a trail of
broken glass & sidewalk
squares uprooted from
their march, some floating
just above the road.
he was on someone else's
porch, a chewing a newspaper,
taking in each headline 
& making rage with it.
i tell him i'm angry too,
sitting down on the steps.
we break the print.
i chew another headline
about denied rape charges. 
never become
a man, i tell the lion.
he promise with a low 
growl, tires across gravel.
before he leaves he bites
me but i don't bleed.
the skin just sits there,
open. i tell him to at least
visit his brother.
but of course he runs, 
fracturing cement 
along the way, 
the blue morning, fragile as
the necks of twigs.  
i put off being a
body just a bit longer
to sit by 
the bed & watch you
sleep. i didn't
get the lion, 
but i trust him.