Steve Sipek's Response to the Death of His Tiger

 

I think of the tiger, and how his eyes
turned away from me. I can still feel
my hand resting on his stretched-out body,
my ear against his lungs, listening
to their falling from full to hollow.

Murder is the word. The guilty ones shrugged
their shoulders. What else could we have done?
A stupid question from people who didn't know
Bobo. They only had to look at him, his face
on the grass, to know he was harmless.

The photograph of his face in the papers
mocks him, makes him look ferocious.
And on the television interview, the woman
only asked that I perform my Tarzan howl.
I amused them. There was nothing else

I could have done. But no matter—
they don't understand how a mind imprisons itself,
tumbling over and over that Sarasate
gypsy melody. They've never heard a song
that to me is in pieces—not a song, really.

I am the one unable to escape its pacing,
its rushing tempers, the playful upward dashes . . .
each cadence distant and muffled.
Some moments, I catch nothing but the breath
of a low and imagined tone, dull and unceasing.

 

 

True Pig

 

Yes, she sports a wooden leg. But search the county:
you won't find a pig more loyal, who's quicker

to grunt and stamp outside the bedroom window
when Earl, the egg-looter, sneaks into the barn.

You know, one night the house caught fire. That pig
jumped through a window, herded the children

to safety. Still, she cowers and lowers her eyes when
we walk past with our work boots on. You ask why

she has that wooden leg—well, what would you do?
With a pig like that, only a fool would eat her all at once.

 

 

Little Otik

 

Don't look at that
piece of wood you just chopped
and think it looks like a baby:

when it turns
into Little Otik
he will eat you.

Don't start carving
its branches into arms
and legs for fun:

alive, he will use
your skill at woodwork
against you.

Don't clothe the log
in diapers and blankets
or cradle it to your chest:

at any moment
it could turn into Little Otik
and you will be sorry.

You still have time to toss
the log into the fire.
Stop cultivating your lie:

when Little Otik wakes
he will know
what you have done.

—Johanna Pittman

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