Not Yet A Lion

Permit me to confess my secret hope:

Since I was very small and full of dreams

I have wished with leonine grace to lope

Into the midst of morons, and their screams

To shed my clumsy, awkward cage of flesh

For a form rippling with shocking strength

To audition a body lithe and fresh

And proudly admire my new tail’s length

Perhaps I was a lion long ago

And have mistaken memories for dreams;

We may have myriad, warm shapes to know

And in new garments, find eternal seams

Henceforth, I will not complain bitterly

Not yet a lion, I may one day be