Surface tension

the lion sat in the back quiet for a while in the passenger’s seat I struggled
with a pair of black tights I bought at CVS on the way the drive to North Oaks
was long and dark and she began to pace back and forth—scratch up the windows

I reached my hand back—she put her chin on it / still a little mange
above her left eye dark eyes falling into something—
drops of water down a dry brown pit—circling onward like a planet

a state of always becoming we come alive when we are shot through
with light—pulled down—at the party I made a few avoidable faux pas took the wrong
glass of champagne frowned at a joke at my own expense was

dressed wrong in sandy gold—hair in a mane—
but I can be charming too move light in my direction—
I was expecting they’d keep their lion outside the night a velvet sharpness

and the walls all windows so we were / drowned in black reflections
of our own eyes—his mother’s arms were crisscrossed with claw marks / I was
somewhere between her and her son—a stranger—brought to a party

as a date for a boy I barely knew but whose grief climbed six flights
to my apartment—roared with me—we became pride of a kind—hunters
whose prey have long since gone extinct—so more a reminder of violence than threat

knowing / known / I know this—I used to have the most archaic ways of looking
the moon was a plastic bag with water in it—I’ve lost interest in beauty / just facts / so I’ll say
it straight——Let the lions inside. Let us eat.

Jaya Stenquist is an alum of the Loft Mentor Series and the MFA at UW Madison. Her work has appeared in Mid American, West Branch Wired, and Hobart among others. She is based in Minneapolis, Minnesota.