Challenging Poetry

secret tigers

our eyes crave deception,
searching for meaning in the lines

and shadows as though seeking
a tiger, hunting through tall grass,
its coat bunching over the muscles of his
attack.

pay no attention
to what is seen, the grass holds no
danger,

but the creeping spaces between,
where a vase is two lovers
and an old woman hides a young
in the lines of her face—

pierce those secrets,
and, the tiger is revealed, the ambush
foiled, the illusion brought to
light.