Five Poems

We Talk of the Tiger
  The tiger has the moon on his side.
Her flask is full of tiger stuff; she drawls a whiff
  on everyone, making the stronger strong,
  the weaker weak. The tiger rounds, rounds
our kampung at night, sniffing for the weakest one.
That one is you. You are practised in your pain,
      refining it to an art
  with teeth to it, a kind of dry point
you hang beside our idols for all to see.
I fear for you. I see you lying in slough,
  the breath eaten from your throat, your arms
and legs disposed in that hieroglyphic sign
for 'death'. And I would die, too, fighting him off
  for you: or after, dragging my heart
out through my eyes for you, still the time of the rains,
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