The cubs crouch pounce practice.
Above the mother leopard lies
along a limb of spreading baobab tree.
Dark roseates crowd her body,
an exotic pox.
She has hauled the carcass
of impala up the tree to outermost branch
where It hangs a tormentor to lions and hyenas.
She scans the plains with pale green eyes.
Her ears keen as a jackal’s nose. Her nostrils sniff the windless air.
In the child-dark she tracks me.
Fangs drawn she snarls,
heaves against my flimsy door.
I moan into my pillow,
wake up on the floor.
In daydreams I glide my hand
along her muscled spine.
Her raspy cough is in my face.
She purrs, head-butts me,
circles my quilted bed.
