Tiger, Tiger...

Tiger, Tiger




Orange shadows yellow jade

sharp wood smoke paints the scent

Sounds of sleep rise and then fade

inure secure within this tent


I slip silently away

past the nodding guard of clay

through tall grasses a-sway

I slip silently away.


The warm night air caresses my hair

and flutters without care the fabric I wear.

I wince and glare and glance, my feet are bare,

I stop and shrug and swear and look, out there…


I skirt the jumble of bramble discrete

then freeze to a halt as moonlight displays

the form of that fear I came here to meet.

He saw me long before I, he: he plays…


I stand perfectly still not even a breath;

he circles and crouches, my coming death,

I cannot run, if I could, if I should…

Panic rises in my chest, if I should.


He is upon me between breath and breath

I am borne down, my coming death

I smell and feel his teeth in my neck

hot wet fluid on my neck

I push up and away with arms too weak

Too strong, too strong, so wrong

I feel sharp pain below, I am torn

I feel a mortal snap of bone

so alone, so all alone…


In my last instant, I agree to die

I do not sigh, I do not cry.

I will return to the sand, the soil, the sky

I give myself, my being; I die.