Dorothy Surrenders Jessy Randall

This Lion Is a Coward

This was the first time we’d sat down together as a family to watch the film, but not the first time a Lahr had been secretly under surveillance while viewing it. -- John Lahr, "The Lion and Me," New Yorker, Nov. 16 1998

Now we find out
the lion was bipolar
ignored his family
turned his face away
from the television
every year

How dare he!
The world is so frightening
to all of us,
anyway --
why does he get to be
the coward?

Is this how
this story works?
The older we grow
the more humbugs we see
There is no city of emeralds
we keep marching toward the center
but we just get further and further
away
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