The Leopard

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Every day I’m getting old
and nervous, she says,
her body sustained
by the one palm pressed
to the table, her posture
alert, voice buried
in a hushed exigency.

Over her startled red lips,
green eyes tremble as if
a leopard were screening
its thick forests.

Her friend,
held to the farthest edge
of his chair, levels against
the skeptical snatches of his
own distracted eyes
a few clinical nods
in harmony with
the inflections of her voice.

His manner bears the ease
of complacency, the drudge
and discomfort of routine
like attending to the same
stubborn pipe leak each summer.

But something in her voice trips
the spring-bar; disbelief
snapped neck deep. Seated across,
I think of that leopard in Nepal
who bunked in a woodpile,
its fangs bared, slowly perching
on each of its haunches. In the bustle,
no one saw it. Not even the dogs.

Except you.
You saw it.

And all that time, I had thought
it was a flair: you
willing yourself to madness.