Clarissa McFairy’s poem, La Mia Musa, was a vox poetica Best of the Net nominee in 2012.

Curtsey to a king
By Clarissa McFairy

I’ve seen so many paintings of you
and once in the zoo,
Max peered into your eyes,
mesmerized

You stepped toward the moat
dividing us
and pawed at the water,
holding his gaze

I thought you might swim
and eyed a nearby tree
as possible salvation
but how do you climb a tree

in stilettos–
not that I was wearing them,
but I was slowed down
by a spiky chill

in the air of possibility,
yet I felt no fear
when we saw a lion
in the wild today,

just a heartbeat away,
tawny as the earth
and more stately
than any king