Mammalina

By Ted Strauss

New fur makes for a new view
With a woosh she gives herself jaws and claws
And the lion gets to be lazy all day
Hold that pose
Mammalina loves inside that lion
He licks and blows upon her wounds
As the mantra fades away
She awakes in an empty room

These lion eyes
Could mark you as a meal
But today his blurry gaze
Wants for shade more than prey

New stripes speak of a confinement
Striped bodies moving up cry freedom
Mammalina knows fear with them zebras
Being hunted under moonlight
A zebra falls his body is torn open
His brother mounts the mother of his children
Mammalina's always running in the darkness
Towards the eastern sunrise

These zebra eyes
See their families die
Watch the source of heat and light's
Death every night

New veil she'll wear for her big day
She's soon to wed her man in the boat trade
Mammalina paints the girl with a mom's gaze
There's no truer sympathy
Mom awakes to the cry of her baby
She wades to the shore of a soft sleep
Baby pulls and bites from the milk tree
Mama wince and hold her near

These mother's eyes
Focus on her child
Every wrong and every right
Now relates to that life

***

Ted Strauss grew up in Winnipeg, one of the coldest places in the world.  His writing is often accompanied by music.  He's in the Psychology department at NSSR.  Ted is based in Brooklyn, and basted in bourbon.