This was a moment of real horror for me during a wonderful day at Minneapolis Zoo. I've never felt comfortable about zoos in the same way I never feel quite at ease with archaeology.
Touching the Tiger
by Oonah V. Joslin
Tantalising, close it lies.
Would you like to touch the tiger skin?
asks the man in the pith
helmet.
Every tiger is unique.
You know them by their
stripes
a different pattern every one
remarkable.
Shaken loose
there its ears
and eyeholes.
I drop
the thing.
Lost
its living gold and roar
patterns
torn
asunder
darkness
dread and threat
declawed
discarded drape of a tattered tiger.
No breath.
No tiger breath.
No rippling gold.
No bold
feline predator.
Behold
the
fearful
asymmetry of death.
Copyright: © 2012 Oonah V Joslin
First published in Bewildering Stories and subsequently in my book Three Pounds of Cells
