Tiger for the Nth Time Those twelve numbers got loose escaping the clock glass like tigers from a cage, still they are not timeless. A stuffed toy tiger purchased at a grocery store sits on my bedside table nameless matching my pink blanket decorated in patterns of friendly tigers. In the realm of dreamland he, with black beady eyes glazed over, could not put his paw up to summon that tidal wave to stop mid-air to retreat like his prey. I don’t pray, ashamed I use my hands another way prior to drifting off to sleep still woke up gasping for air. As if I was drowning at the beach, my bed not a lifeboat as tears escaped as I clutched my blanket tighter as I proceeded to wet the bed (still in my bright blue basketball shorts) but no tiger was chasing me even though she liked to use that analogy for my body. The physiology of fight freeze or flee— I told her I’d rather be a bird for a day to fly away from here yet still would be caged by my own mind no matter how many tigers looking up I witnessed those clock numbers replaced by twelve pictures of tigers.
—Submitted on 09/24/2022
Sophia Falco is the author of Farewell Clay Dove (UnCollected Press, 2021). Her poems have appeared in The Beautiful Space, Lighthouse Weekly, The Mindful Word and other journals. Falco graduated magna cum laude from UC Santa Cruz, and is pursuing an MFA in creative writing at Saint Mary’s College of California.
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Editor’s Note: The series title A River Sings is borrowed from “On the Pulse of Morning,” the poem read by Maya Angelou at the inauguration of Bill Clinton in 1993.
