Tiger.
When I was young
The tiger wove
Soft calfskin into moccasins
With its rough hands.
Then the moon came. Then came
Electric signs and light-
-up cattle prods.
And the tiger choked its left hand to death
With its right and wetchewed its right off.
Like hooves, paws grew from the stumps,
A song in the sinews. Hunger in its eyes.
And there was no cobblers in the forest,
Nor safewalking children, after that.
In my body: I'm the minotaur.
I
A labyrinth as intestines, for —
Both huff and puff
But only lead to one place.
The nostrils flare
The wet drips from the ceiling
The bull is loose.
II
Open yourself to the bull.
Fold yourself inner like a prolapse
Or a shrinky dink, all sticky
In the oven.
Feel the hooves. Lay down on the
Sand of the lot, the kitchen floor
Of the kitchen floor, silhouette yourself.
Imagine the bull passing as an August cloud
And graciously layering itself
On yourself, like a shrinky dink
Unobscured by graphite or pen.
III
The bull roams choleric in the pasture.
I line the inside of my coat with grass,
Phlegm — for the curve of the coat
Is the curve of my arm, my arm
Its sloping horn, that bull.
IV
Neck too large to fit
The head of the bull — small.
Take a photo with the head of the bull
In a shopping basket, somewhere behind.
Make this body
The minotaur’s body, host the bull
Inside a man’s body the exact size and shape
Of a bull’s body, the horns, loose skin around
The hunch, the pizzle, mullet, gnashwhite
Teeth, gnash these white teeth.
Eat the youths or sit on the woodgrain of the
Linoleum or the piss of the carpet awhile longer.
Let the eyes — close, the white of the eye — the dark
Hide of the bull, the leather, the sinew, grass-in-the-
Coat: the bull rolls over and dusts itself in the dirt like
A balloon coating itself in paper-mache for the making
Of masks. You roll on the floor of the kitchen floor, no
Kitchen, foammouthed. Mosquitos buzzing in the lobby
Between the screen and the window, the hide and the
Bull’s red blood.
V
The bugs and the cops and
The flags, the blood, the dogs pulling
On their chains, white daub-
Brick cities in the galloping night,
Dragged inner by the scruff
Of the neck, the bull, the sharp-
Dressed man.
The bull is here
And the man is loose.
-- Noam Hessler is a poet from New England. Hessler's work has been published in Misery Tourism, BRUISER, and DON'T SUBMIT. They are currently a student at Vassar College, and can be found on twitter at @poetryaccnt1518.