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HOLD THAT TIGER

By Chloe Wilson

That morning, in the mirror,
I’d pulled my draping cheek-skin upward.
I had shone, taut and foreign,
the gums and incisors
glistering with saliva.

While evening and the show crowds gathered,
I watched him. The chain glinked
as he traced his circle,
always stalking - even the grass
shivered under his breath.

Entering the ring, he beckoned
me to dance, laid one
paw on each shoulder
and rolled me in the dirt.

His mouth opened wide
as bedclothes, and I scented
the iron on his tongue
while he hinged his hips

and the crowd thought I was dying.

Tigers like to dine alone.
I knew this; yet stayed a moment
too long, waiting
for an invitation

and was not all that surprised
to find a joint of meat missing
from my thigh.

They hunt by pressing you
to their hearts, then
kicking out your insides
in a casual sweep.

There’s the danger.
Not, after all, in the teeth
but beneath the tail,
which, like a finger,
searches out any pleasures
the front end may have missed.

This one slid
his tongue along the contours
of my bowel,
sniffing like a sommelier.

That night, he cleaned himself
thoroughly, that supple
tongue spreading like a stingray
under the nails
and detailing the groin;

ignoring the crowd
nobly, as they shook
the metal bars
that keep them safe.

‘Hold That Tiger’ is featured in The Mermaid Problem, Chloe Wilson’s first collection that has been published as part of the APC’s 2010 New Poets Series, more details here.

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Blue Dog: Australian Poetry is the flagship publication of the Australian Poetry Centre. Blue Dog aims include a wide variety of poems and poetry related articles, reviews and interviews from around the nation.

This diversity is reflected in the more than one thousand submissions received for each issue. The journal welcomes work from both amateurs and professionals.

Managing Editor Grant Caldwell says:

‘We continue to seek a variety of work, no matter the form, as long as it can fit on the page(s) and is brilliant: concrete poems, scored sound poems, found poems, language poems, even metered rhyming poems (they’d better be good!).’

All work is subjected to a rigorous process of blind editing by some of Australia’s leading poets. This process allows our editors to select the very best Australian poetry on offer. Blue Dog: Australian Poetry is published twice a year in July and November.

We look forward to producing and reading a magazine that surprises and delights and challenges everything and anything in whatever form is necessary.

This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.