A Canzona for Tigers

by Bonnie Demerjian

Right there in the video, the man sings
to the tigers.
Two of them behind the gate, the perimeter bare where they have paced.
He sings in French and though they may be Bengalese
they understand and music’s magnet draws them nearer.
Haunches settle, one begins to moan, another
then the man, a trio now.
Great jaws agape, the fence no barrier— 
sound dissolves it—and the screen of species parts
for the length of a song
a glimpse of oneness til the twitching tail, the coda,
marks the ending.

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BONNIE DEMERJIAN write from her island home in the Tongass National Forest, a place of mountains and ocean. Her poetry has appeared in Cirque Journal,  Artemis, The Alaska Literary Field Guide, and others. Her chapbook, Flotsam and Jetsam is newly released.

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