4. Fier Cat

 

 

When I get up most mornings I just know there'll be some
excitement--in fact I shouldn't say 'morning' because it happens any time of night
or day. It takes no time at all for me to go from curled up
sleeping to spring ready for ak-SHUN!

My stripes ripple like the light-dark jungle against a tiger's flank.

Why make a tyger orange, or, even less so, orange and black and white?

The fire boys--we call them boys, even when they're girls--are
excited, that is the thing we share, when someone
says, Jump!, we're on the truck and out the doooooooor!

I've never been bitten by fire but I've seen ones who have--fur
burns with the smell of dead bodies and skin in fire vanishes
like celluloid. You know:

A small hole appears in the middle, a dot of white in the moving
image, and spreads toward the edges of the frame, orange and black and white
and blistering, eating the shapes around it, hungry microphage,
until it eclipses even itself and there is only
white, light, unimpeded, unfilmed, unfiltered.

Skin disappears that way, but beneath skin
is not light but the spongy soft tissue, pink-red
opaque matter of living form. It scabs, it scars
over, eventually even the fur grows back.
Fire is outline with heat, pure excitation
released from the weight of flesh, fire
springs without touching down.

i liek tuu bee a fier cat

I stumble in the code I was given.

I turn towards the only thing I know.

                ie get
tuu goe on fier trips

I'm telling you, danger, urgency, the chance
to make a difference, the look in their eyes
when you come--
as if an infant felt all the things we see
in it: recognition, wonder, some wise joke behind
that little grin--all these people
I never could have dreamed of.

ie get tuu goe

It is a moment in itself, finally it is not about waiting.

sum tiems the fier
men forget tuu tern off
the hoes

There are accidents, of course, and with most
accidents, there is a benefactor. Our lives are built
on the misfortunes of others, if you look at it
one way. Our meaning depends on disaster.

I don't mean to imply that they make me go
begging but I'm also not one to let good luck
slip by--and, you know, this didn't hurt anyone, and--
well, they don't always have time to think
of me, so--if I have to look after myself, I
mean, if I can, and they don't want to--?

get a dringk

Fier-water
burning bright.

 

back to issue two

 

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