She's all woman, Connie the lioness.

She pads around her home -

she lives alone.

A little overweight, and getting on.

 

Once there was a lion but he's gone.

The keeper says he died after a fall.

Seems odd to me a cat would fall and die,

the platform that they jump from is not high.

 

On Connie's back are deep dark marks, old scars

from some romantic tussle long ago?

A randy lion could have caused the marks.

From her expression only Connie'd know.

 

She prowls in haughty loneliness and thinks.

She ponders on her past, her fights, her loves.

She's locked away when keepers leave her food.

They wrap it up in sacking to ensure

she'll have to work for it before

she rips the flesh and tastes the blood again.

 

The keeper says that Connie is quite rare,

large for a female and she calls so loud

all Newquay hears her in the early hours.

 

Is she still calling for her mate

to say she's sorry, that she didn't mean to be so rough?

Like Connie, every passionate woman knows

the only crime is not to love enough.