There’s Nothing In That Black Bag For You

I get it now.

You see the world through eyes of red glass

…

There’s a hill at your feet

(Too steep for antelope, too small for bison),

And at its snowy summit is some perfection or another.

The gray slopes towering over it are forgotten,

Barren and snowless,

Only the low ground being so exclusive to the white.

But it makes no sense; the world shouldn’t work that way!

Yet I can only assume it’s just.

Your hill that you patrol

(Your territory, dear snow lion)

Is just as I said: yours.

And all other hills belong to all other lions,

Glass eyes tinted red or blue,

The snow their own color.

Lionesses appear,

Red, blue, and willing

(Red and blue are tricks of the glass, willing is the truth),

And each has a place on some hill.

Forgive me if the details are tiresome,

But I watch from the slopes of the towering grays,

Knowing that I’ll never make anyone feel the way that she makes you feel.