The Antelope

onscreen during National Geographic,
caught and eaten by the lioness,
while the other antelope run away fast
disturbs me more than it should. The herd
bounds into the woods from the prairie
while the unlucky antelope,
ripped open wholeheartedly
and just as quickly forgotten, knows death is
merely
when the world is taken away. When it happens
to us -- an absence of everyone and everything
we have ever known -- we continue
to look at life from the lion’s point of view
or the herd’s, but never the animal who’s been
caught.
How likely that there are more of us
missing a finger or needing insulin
than the ones who escape, the beautiful people?
How can we expect
to be trapped during our lives
while the yearbook picture boasts
wrestling champ, pep club president,
the ultimate perfection in shining, white teeth?
The people in that photograph
do not exist, lost
dreams filtering through a sleepless terrain
like the girl who got pregnant in eleventh grade.