“Everyone Asks” by Nancy Christopherson

Everyone Asks

if it’s real. What sits comfortably in my living room
in front of the green marble fireplace which is framed
in a golden oak. Everyone entering asks the same

question. Is that real? they suddenly inquire. They
step in, we greet, they pan around with their eyes — then
always the startled look, and they ask. They try to relax

but stand ready. I think it’s the eyes, how exactly
they bore deep into your body, as if already tasting flesh.
The animal is seated on its haunches with its tail wrapped

but with those big paws it could easily gap the distance
in one moment’s glance. The first time I saw it, I knew.
The sculptor who tooled the original was surely gifted

and had seen one or more in the wild. Or that is my
hope. One would have to forfeit any piece fashioned
from captivity where the animal would be lost to

loneliness or pacing, dreams that the large steel door
bursts savagely open to let flood in the actual blue light.
There are worse things than death, a friend once told me

after the incident, after describing years living outdoors
among ridges and the gorge all around, the smell of his
constant mules. I value those eyes and the intensity of that

focused stare, what they stand for. How this dangerous
predator could come alive, lunge and take you down
before you might think there may be worse things than

death. It would happen quite quickly, the glorious lethal
leap. Perhaps this is how the world came about — a flash
of bright instinct then a flood of heat in our mouths. We

would certainly see stars.

Nancy Christopherson

Nancy Christopherson’s poems have appeared in Aji Magazine, Amethyst Review, Barnstorm Journal, Cirque, Common Ground Review, Free State Review, Helen Literary Magazine, Hole In The Head Review, Kosmos Quarterly Spring Gallery of Poets, Molecule Tiny Lit Mag, Peregrine, Raven Chronicles, The Cape Rock, The Stillwater Review, Third Wednesday, Verseweavers, Willawaw Journal, and Xanadu, among others. Author of the poetry collection The Leaf, she resides in Oregon and is a former executive board member of Oregon Poetry Association. More here: https://www.nancychristophersonpoetry.com
On IG: @nancychristophersonpoetry

Headshot: Mary Nicolson

Photo Credit: Staff