The Big Cats, Part II

Tiger | Evgeny Turaev / Shutterstock

“The Big Cats” is a ten-part poetry cycle written and read by Val Vinokur and published weekly at Public Seminar. For more, read Part I, Part III, Part IV, Part V, Part VI, Part VII, and Part VIII, Part IX, and Part X.

THE BIG CATS

II.

Last night I dreamed there was a tiger sleeping
in the bosom of the family, the same light canary
color as the dog. And as with all things, it fell
to me to get his groceries and think on how
to settle him in our oneiric car to hide in our
gingerbread house for forty days and forty nights
and forty years in the wilderness of forty thieves.