Lion

To JDL. You will always be my twin.

When I was six years old,

I pretended just to be

a lion tamer.

And my twin brother, Jason,

was the lion.

We would go outside to play

in our backyard’s tall grass.

I would walk around,

swirling pathways in the blades.

And Jason would obediently follow,

crawling

on his hands and knees.

We didn’t like

when Grandpa’d mow the grass—

and cut away our secret hiding place.

We played Lion in our room

when that occurred

until

the grass grew long and green

and we could step into our luscious world

again.