Project for the Sun

Owning no slaves
The lion and the men
Cut into the verdant foothills
Guns strapped to their backs.

Their long heavy steps
Held quiet in the thick moss.
When almost at the apex
The guiltiest turned and said:

The next three mornings are
to wash the sins between us.
They bowed heads and made camp
And soaked the ground with their scent.

The midnight was a cavern
Around them and as the moon’s
Watery eye slid behind the mountain
The lion woke amidst the sleeping men.

The ground beneath the campfire 
Opened and the lion walked in
And down between the heavy
Earthen walls, red and musky as blood.

A sigh floated from up the corridor
Where the lion entered an olive room
In which sat a woman wound fast
In her own hair. Who are they?

She asked. The lion told her and she
Unbound her hair to cut three locks,
And the ground closed above their heads.
And the locks were now vultures that flew out to the men.

Sam Bully-Thomas was born in upstate New York. Her mother is Caribbean and her father from the Midwest. She grew up in Iran, Kuwait, Malawi, South Africa, New York and the windward island of the Commonwealth of Dominica where her mother is from. As an adult she has lived and worked in Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Tokyo, Alaska, Ireland, England, Miami and most recently Athens, Georgia.

Cane is her first collection of poetry published by Wundor Editions, London. Her poems have appeared in Threepenny Review, S/S/Y/K, Naugatuck Review, The Harlequin and other publications in the UK, USA, Ireland.

To learn more about Sam, visit issamthomas.com