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ENCOUNTER IN THE CAGE COUNTRY What I was would not work For them all, for I had not caught The lion's eye. I was walking down The cellblock in green glasses and came At last to the place where someone was hiding His spots in his black hide. Unchangeably they were there, Driven in as by eyes Like mine, his darkness ablaze In the stinking sun of the beast house. Among the crowd, he found me Out and dropped his bloody snack And came to the perilous edge Of the cage, where the great bars tremble Like wire. All Sunday ambling stopped, The curved cells tightened around Us all as we saw he was watching only Me. I knew the stage was set, and I began To perform first saunt'ring then stalking Back and forth like a sentry faked As if to run and at one brilliant move I made as though drawing a gun from my hipbone , the bite-sized children broke Up changing their concept of laughter, But none of this changed his eyes, or changed My green glasses. Alert, attentive, He waited for what I could give him: 274 My moves my throat my wildest love, The eyes behind my eyes. Instead, I left Him, though he followed me right to the end Of concrete. I wiped my face, and lifted off My glasses. Light blasted the world of shade Back under every park bush the crowd Quailed from me I was inside and out Of myself and something was given a lifemission to say to me hungrily over And over and over your moves are exactly right For a few things in this world: we know you When you come, Green Eyes, Green Eyes. Falling 275 ...

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