by Barbara Schweitzer
Lions are not lustful
when they lunge
They are hungry same
as you and me
reaching for the BLT's
or tuna melts.
We love to metaphorize
what our eyes be-
hold, but it is a dangerous
sport, excusing
everything human
as meaningful to dogs
when dogs would
make dogmeat of half
the dogma we're
mesmerized by.
To their one icon
alone -- meat --
they bark hallelujah.
Barbara Schweitzer's poetry has received numerous prizes including an NEA Merit Fellowship in RI and the Galway Kinnell Poetry Prize. Her work appears in various literary and online journals and in anthologies Sundays at Sarah's, and upcoming Regrets Only and In the Eye. Her first collection of poetry 33 1/3, a semi-finalist for the Bakeless Prize, will be published in 2006.