Become the Lion

We keep my sister alive by force, pin her down and nurse her with raw eggs from the chickens that did not drown and milk taken from a goat staked to the ground. The dull tolling of the bell around her neck speaks as she moves. Here, I am here. She wanders to the river, and we find her. In a tree, singing to a starling, we find her. We dig a grave for the missing body, but nothing consoles her. In mourning, the cure is the sickness. A year ago, a lion took our mother as she tended the fire. This hunger bewilders me. We found half of her bones and buried her uneaten heart in a dead cub's rib cage. When we returned three days later we saw no bones, no heart, only tracks in the sand leading east.Ghost me. Fossil me. Resurrect me near dawn. We're always at the mercy of one menacing grace, one rite, an art that makes us suffer twice. At night we wait with out knives where the tall grass begins. We will kill it or die or become the lion.