Captivity

I always heard, the lions share, as reprimand at dinner table,
when large-pawed adults batted the phrase
at me and one another.
I missed context and apostrophe,
so that cubs and lionesses, in savannah haze,
were soccer moms at half-time afternoons,
nuzzling matted manes, licking faces.
Each kept a yellow, mascara-lined eye
on the safari man with musket,
They doled out brown bag lunches,
sticky with blood and the kill, to the pride.
In the sawdust at zoos, straw rings at the circus,
the lions pace the cages.
Soft-set stares accuse the crowds:
we once had so much more.

CDL