Self-portrait as a mountain lion

As it moves it breaks,

Sinew strains

Against skin marred with scars

Ropy lines raked through canvas

Like rends in reality

Pulling taut

As it moves it bleeds,

Without heed

For bellows of body

Broken and branded like

Livestock gone loose,

Mad with fright

As it moves it fears,

Tufted ears

Like helicopter blades

Swiveling round

And around

It tenses and shakes,

Nerves rattle

and muscles quake, beneath

bristling fur

Thorny as thistle and

Smattered with gristle

Struggling against trap and treatment in-

Discriminately striking out,

Snapping at the hand of Hippocrates

Calloused and coarse,

The hands of friends and family

The hands of healing

Fearing fallacies and falsehoods

Wary of betrayal and weary of the consequences

And so as it moves it dies

Trapped and timid

Wasting away

Under

Burden of battles untold

The final nails lined up in a

Coffin wrought

Of caution.