I.

Here in prison
I still hear the lions

stalking prey in the bush.
I still dream

in eight-pointed stars,
know the number 13

marks chaos.
Try to remember

I am
part beast,

part sapphire,
cracking

my blue teeth
on the iron bars.

II.

My husband
turns himself

into a cobra,
escapes

the easy way, slides
sideways in the dark,

slithers through
that crack in the door.

Even the lions
will fear him.

Gabrielle Langley is the author of Fairy Tale (Sable Books, 2023) and Azaleas on Fire (Sable Books, 2019). She has won the Lorene Pouncey Poetry Award and the Vivian Nelis Memorial Award for Creative Writing. Ms. Langley was also a spearhead and co-editor for the anthology Red Sky: Poetry on the global epidemic of violence against women (Sable Books, 2016).