Poem: "The Tiger Women"
This poem came out of the December 1, 2020 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired and sponsored by Anthony Barrette. It belongs to the Polychrome Heroics series.
"The Tiger Women"
[2016]
In India, the jungles
keep a strange secret.
There are women
living with tigers.
The women walk away
from the farms and the cities
full of violent, unpredictable men.
They walk into the jungles
full of wild tigers, who are
less dangerous than men.
The tigers, too, have
suffered at the hands of men --
hunted for their beauty as
much as for their danger.
So the women and the tigers
form an alliance of sorts.
They live together and
hunt together, depending
on each other for survival.
They slip through the forests
like ghosts made of flame,
bright colors surprisingly hidden
by the green and brown trees.
The few men who dare to follow
them learn the old lesson anew:
The female of the species is
more deadly than the male.
"The Tiger Women"
[2016]
In India, the jungles
keep a strange secret.
There are women
living with tigers.
The women walk away
from the farms and the cities
full of violent, unpredictable men.
They walk into the jungles
full of wild tigers, who are
less dangerous than men.
The tigers, too, have
suffered at the hands of men --
hunted for their beauty as
much as for their danger.
So the women and the tigers
form an alliance of sorts.
They live together and
hunt together, depending
on each other for survival.
They slip through the forests
like ghosts made of flame,
bright colors surprisingly hidden
by the green and brown trees.
The few men who dare to follow
them learn the old lesson anew:
The female of the species is
more deadly than the male.