The End of Purpose

When the Tiger growls
It slips Its tongue over short incisors.
Not merely to display aggression
But to swear It likes the taste of blood.

When the Tiger moves
Its pads touch soft grass, Its irritable tail ceases twitching.
Its purpose is stealth and purpose is all
It knows It is nothing to see, nothing to hear, and everything to fear.

When the Tiger roars
It flattens keen ears against Its head.
Not simply to give dire impression
Tiger knows noise is for prey and hates Its voice.

When the Tiger strikes
Its jaws swing bared teeth behind claws turned inward.
Its purpose is Death and Death is all
Tiger. In every moment, Tiger is flight and might and killer and Tiger.

Village gunners are flesh and wood
Bright and joyful loud and stink and anthill bite.
They hunt in packs but never taste blood.
Still, Tiger is Tiger, and Death never greets Death.

Moving On.

 

Held my own heart in my hands and quietly considered myself.
Slid it together along the vivisection lines like a puzzle,
A Djinn’s broken lamp after an earthquake.

Ready to fall apart, it no longer held as it had done all those years.
The muscle thick with weakness and clipped wires and scars,
A half-seared roast basted with candle wax.

They won’t let me keep it no matter how many times I ask.
It is not a discarded umbilical cord or tonsils in a jar,
And it was mine long enough.

Someone else had one they weren’t using to loan me.
Not sure what to think about the fairness of that,
No matter how hard I try not to.

So here I am, four good years later with a good-hearted woman beside me.
Breathing, beating, winning, working, writing,
Learning what the heart possesses is transferable.

Originally published in the 2010 farewell issue of Poesia.