Dancing With The Tigers Poem by Windsor Guadalupe Jr

Your lithe feet upon
The den of tigers.

The cloaked men behind
The pillars
Told me

That you were now one
With them,
The tigers.
You let them touch
You with their woebegone paws.
You let them
Drink your innocence,
As much as
You drink theirs.

This is what you
Are.
And this is what
You
Will always
Be.

The terrorizing mouths
Festooned with fangs
Prowling,
Making short, brusque howls -
Sweet music
To your ears,
You are a sanguine child
In the empire
Of the tigers.

I don’t care
If you kneel
In front of them,
If you polish
Their fangs
At night,
Or you bawl
With them just the same.

I am not a tiger,
And I will not rescue
You from the tigers.

This is what you are.
A recalcitrant.
A truant muse
Who trifles with
The tigers.

This,
As I wander
And wade
Across, like a wind
Wafting through
Cul-de-sacs
Of cities,
Will never happen again.

Let the tigers
Besmirch you.
I don’t care.