Almanac Poetry: ‘Tiger’ – Tommy Mallet

Tiger

 

Poor tiger,
all fat and slithering about our
carport,
with the wife’s junk and woodwork,
my work tools,
while I’m doing chores
with our child.

 

Her back’s to it.

 

“Go inside” I say,
in that nail-on-the-head voice,
that makes a defiant kid
simply comply.

 

*****

 

Tiger’s making to leave,
but they’re territorial.

 

I have no catcher pole,
there’s no broom to pin him with
close by,

 

No safe way to grab
his tail.

 

And you’d be back, mate. You’d
be back, be back,
as sure as mice breed.

 

There’ll be no relocating you.

 

Our girl’s safety trumps
your perfect evolution,
the rodents you eat,

 

the owls we might poison
if we bait the rodents.

 

You’re out in the open,
there’s a shovel.

 

It’s time.

 

   *****

 

You try to go this way and that,
attack at one stage,
but, mate, I have you.

 

All you want to do is get out
of this moment,
rack off.

 

Tiger, don’t we all.

 

*****

 

Your death goes poorly, tiger.
You’re too quick,
jag and get tangled up in the
water pipe pumps.

 

I don’t get a clean hit
for fear of rupturing them
in the middle of a drought.

 

The shovel falls just below your neck,
severing your body,

 

yet, leaving enough blood,
for your top end
to slither your head away.

 

Your own little, big horror
show.

 

*****

 

Why do we cling to life like that,
tiger?

 

Like the opossum
my dog attacked,
trying to crawl away
on its one remaining
unbroken limb,

 

the wallaby that tried
to hop to safety,
at horrible, right angles,
when my ute
ran over its tail.

 

My old man,
14 days in a coma,
without food,
brain already long gone.

 

I had to bail up the doctor on that one,
tiger.

 

“Increase the fucking dosage!”

 

“Let me let this end.”

 

I watched the top quarter of you,
the fear in your eyes
giving me poetry and pause,
then you were gone,
hidden again,
without heart or lungs.

 

Why don’t we just lay down?

 

   *****

 

I’m sorry tiger,
the heat brought you out,
but you were about.

 

Who are we, to build
things in the bush,
right-angled walls,
put fridges behind them,
a couch,
the smell of garlic, pan fried,
let loose our crumb-shedding
child,

 

attract spiders, mice, snakes,

 

owls?

 

*****

 

Tomorrow, in this heat, I’ll move
the wood pile
further from the house, tiger.
First task of the morning,

 

probably find what’s left of you,
dead at last.

 

Apologies again.

 

Take your remains away from the house,
like the morticians took
my dad.

 

Leave them to the crows.

 

 

 

 

 

More poetry from Tommy Mallet can be read Here.

 

 

More poetry from Almanac Poetry can be read HERE

 

 

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