Hi all! Here's a poem I wrote in an experimental style. Half story half poem, it uses symmetry and an unreliable narrator for psychedelic effect. I hope you enjoy...
 
![](https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/af/68/d9/af68d9f2541752b4c05ee987192b82ad.jpg)

**Time and a Tiger**


Picking through the ripe market oranges, I once saw a hunter boast of his caged tiger to some fellow tradesmen: the ferocity of the beast, that he would later know firsthand when it escaped from its barred confines and picked through the ripe household of the man.  Too late was the shot that matched the tiger's roar in a clash of power and blood.  Broken gun across his lap, I eyed him from around an upheld orange, cleaning the hollows of his rifle minus an arm and a family.  A cracked cardboard sign at his feet reads, 'Wilderness Tours for 4—by Jeep—10 American Dollars'.  Luring a haggler with the clapping of spoons, he replied with a bitter smile that he doesn’t do it for the money.

Though now that I stand here, halved orange in hand, I wonder if I saw the man all wrong.  Perhaps while fending off a tiger on his wilderness tour run solely for money, the man had protected a woman and her children, thereby gaining a family.  He humbly tells to some fellow merchants of his wife and the steady business he runs with the aid of her son.  It could be that the inverse details of this life were reflected to me, like the sun off those duel spoons that play in his lap as he sings out, ‘Wild Oranges—Buy Now—4 for a Dollar’.