The Captive Improvises: Channel Six News
Whiskers alert,
a young lioness stands
on a waving savannah
she has never seen.
Something old
she always knew
bristles in the amber
chamber of her body.
There are no corners
in her eyes
No glass to glass
enclosure.
All keepers are gone.
Intent,
she stalks
a tasty morsel,
the bundle of a one year old
toddling by himself,
eye to eye
beside her glass walls.
She hunkers down,
lifts herself with him
side to side.
Her paws extend
to knead the killing ground.
Nancy Fletcher Cassell (website) is a visual artist and writer. She has written poetry most of her life and collaborates with other artists whenever possible. A finalist for the 2012 Joy Bale Boone Poetry Award from Heartland Review, her work has also been published in Water-Stone Review (finalist Jane Kenyon Poetry Prize), Bigger Than They Appear: Anthology of Very Short Poems from Accents Publishing and in Still: The journal. Her visual work has received Fellowships from the Kentucky Arts Council and support from The Kentucky Foundation for Women.
qarrtsiluni 
I like this a lot. Reminds me of seeing tigers at the zoo stalking the keepers cleaning an adjoining cage. It was hair-raising even though I knew no one was in danger.