#95 Kevin Brophy 'What he knows about the tiger'

He knows each part of the roaring yellow tiger:

nose, ears, whiskers, claws, teeth and tail

until we arrive  at the puzzling stripes.

What those? he says.

Stripes, I say.

Stripes, he says.

Stripes, we agree.

Tomorrow we will make

this agreement all over again

unless that tiger would bring its stripes

into town in the night and swing its striped

tail through the air and drool stripes of mucus

from its meaty mouth at his door, its eyes striped

by those shadowy bars of a consciousness glimpsed.