Issue Twenty - Summer 2012

Instinct

By Nalini Davison

You
do not love
what I love, yet
want to come into my body
and take possession of something
unnamable, not yours, that quiets your restlessness
for an hour, not more, maybe
less, then leaves you
hungrier than
before.

I
have seen
the lion, shoulders
like two opposing pistons
slowly rising and falling as he stalks
the gazelle, her powder puff tail flicking nervously, soft muzzle
drawing in water from the cooling stream. Calculated burst into flight, body
stretched out and orchestrated for just this chase, he takes her
down. Fangs slash the terrified throat
moments before she passes
into blessed
darkness.

He
enters
her fully. Jaws
encircle the secret kingdom,
tearing at her sweet meat until he is gorged.
Rising up, jowls smeared red with her sacrifice, he moves away,
lays down his power with deliberation, finding sleep in the shade of African heat. Lord of the kill, he can take what he wants, yet is bound
by his animal code: the lion hunts when
he is hungry, rests
when he is
full

Copyright Davison 2012

Nalini Davison lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, California, where she works as a transpersonal psychotherapist. With an MA in English literature from the University of Pittsburgh, she early on became a teacher but then found herself fascinated with human awareness and switched careers. She just started submitting; recent poems have appeared in The Poetry of Yoga and Penumbra. Things Nalini loves include: writing poetry and fiction; delving into Eastern philosophy; hiking and ballroom dancing; and seeing her psychotherapy clients.

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