Michelle Detorie

This poem was first published as Tinyside # 9 by Big Game Books

FERAL THING

Fang of a cat, found

when one was scavenging
the dirt.

Rotted out half-jaw.
But still the tooth
almost yellow — almost blue.

Luminous above the black

sand caught
between the bones – teeth comb.

Cat that was wild. Cat

that was blue.

No funeral

for the wild cats — invented things.

Turned wild — turned dead.

The fig’s roots
thread through the cavity

of a pelvis, of a skull.

Claws curled up under

the house, under

the girl.

Only the jaw drifted

to the yard where it was found — tip
of the spade knocking it loose

from the packed ground.

The fig tree

with all its green hands reaching

toward the sound of the blade on the bone.

The bone
reeled up —

spade like a bucket

lifting out of the well —

the jaw in its gleaming metal

mouth.

Half a jaw —
half a mouth, capable

of a half- growl — half song.

I dragged the tooth

across the stone path
as one might light a match.

It played a tune.

A tune for the dead.

A tune for all

the wild (living) things.