“The Last Time” by Kristin LaTour

My finger was curled around a trigger, I had a choice
between telling the truth of my baptism in air
or lying about how I became a lioness. It seemed
such an easy way out. I counted back through generations
to a traveling Jew walking from Rome to Tarsus
whose son married a Greek merchant’s daughter
whose children moved north and learned to work
with iron and gunpowder. The Greeks drew lions
on their pots, made mosaics of dolphins leaping
through air. Who knows? I may not be the first woman
to earn the name Lynn in my family’s lineage
marking my place among my ancestors.
My finger was on the trigger. I made a decision.

For more poems by LaTour, check out FIVE Vol. 1 No. 11.

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