(excerpt from) The Immomal Man Conversations (pt. V)

I read about tigers and the ways they are.
I dread the many ways tigers can feel.
They can hear you with their whiskers.
They can whisper with their stripes.
They will bear you with dignified exuberance and then they will eat you.
They crave meat and bone and smoke.
They live in caves made of old tiger ideas.
Their teeth are sharpened sandals, walking across your neck.
Their hands are as big as their feet. A tiger will hold doom in its brow like a tree with a swing and a handle.
Its stomach is an air balloon without walls.
The tiger is an encyclopedia of noble ferocity.
It was only a book.
But light reading can make for heavy breathing.
Tigris libris.
I shut tight the cover and I can hear purring and pawing outside the door.
Burn bright and cover the sound of stirring and mawing.
A sound like a roar.
Trapped in a hunted house.
Holy cats.