I live in a quiet garage beside a line of eucalyptus trees
At night, Tiger pads into the room while I’m asleep
Tiger in the corner of my dreams
Tiger I can’t get past I have to keep practicing
Tiger like a teenager
who will one day drop her soft baby
You are my new boyfriend. You give me that John Lennon feeling
We hike to the overlook the ticks burrowing into me
the frontier of our life
under the turkey vultures circling
***
I am twenty years old I run out of gas on the freeway
I won’t go home but I do quit drinking.
I drive a VW van that can accommodate sleeping
I think your shame is rather appealing
a heavy door like a safe in a little room where I work retail closing & opening
We’re still in bed & I know you drive to Commerce to go gambling
I’m not afraid when you leave in fact when you stay
I feel like I’m suffocating
Tiger out of the corner of my eye but I keep walking
***
Tiger is a test that comes at first when I’m dreaming
I am twenty & getting clean & the dream of Tiger is something invisible
that the night is now requiring
When I was twelve she wore half tops & her brother listened to The Smithereens
now her baby is velcroed into a wheelchair and she erupts into joy when he relearns smiling
We climb a peak in Topanga State Park
the background conversation hikers from Germany
Overhead the crows but inside a steep hill
into the ways love keeps us reeling
***
The men teach me that horses can smell fear
& so when Tiger stalks me I think the lesson is to be steely
I finally learn to pass Tiger without the animal pouncing
But shame is a crater I move toward
after the movie leaves me weeping
I kick in the kitchen cabinets & finally let you hold me
***
One day our children will make us a family
& the baby will make dancing feet before he starts ramming
& nothing nothing
not even Tiger out of the corner of my eye
prepares me for how love
requires all of this fragility
Cover Art by Kelsey Baker
