Jaime April 4!

{Pardine Me}

The way I choose to remember it,
it was I who attacked the leopard.
My hollow shank heavy of strange brew.
My trick lust for predators.
The drink took hold of me
umbilically to the jungle
where they burn down trees
to make room for more trees
the way he replaced my drink
with a fresh one before I’d finished.
Watching him change,
purr into his stretch,
a rapacity born of touch and white liquor
stubbed cigarettes out on his pelt.
What trophy, my hands
skimmed the moving fresco of fur,
his wide snout,
the chalk and banter of paws,
the places they’ve been,
the places they’ve been.
Deep in an animal’s eyes
is a challenge, so deep in
a human’s eyes is a flirt.
It was I who charged,
swept bottles to the floor,
pulled the muscles above me
nesting in banyan roots
to cover my face,
cover my mouth,
cover me.

Excuse me, but this is the way
I choose to remember it.
The way God chooses to remember Africa:
the way He created it,
not the way it looks now.