Seventeen Minutes

Seventeen minutes and I scale that tree. I know how long it takes for those monkeys to move on. And I’m not getting tossed at today. I use tiger claws and scale right up. I have tiger claws, I am tiger claws. I got seventeen reasons to climb that tree and everyone of ‘em ends with coconuts. I’m a thirsty jungle cat. All a jungle cats are a thirsty jungle cats.

I chomped a human man at a wrist once. Coughed up a wrist watch and gnawed on a finger bones. Made me think of a not-so-tough claw. Made me think he’d better move away from my jungle, gave ‘em something to remember me by. Pretty kitty, is what she said. And she don’t think that way no more.

When I dream my world is electric, every tree a ball of yarn. We don’t have to be domestic to know the feel of a soft ball of endless weaves is a good to scratch and chase. In my dreams the coconuts fill the trees and I pounce from one to the next in a hop-off style.

The other cats are no match for me. I lick a hurt paw and turn a quick neck to snatch a small rat and pounce to a next bark.

Birds are tasty snacks. I like a feather tickle down my deep throat. I like to prowl at night in the fluorescent water, watch the silver plankton skip across the surface in their glow party. I like to open my jaws wide and make a boat propeller out of my cat-tail. I swoop a lot of tiny fish in my jungle mouth, then I chomp chomp the whole lot in a jaw snap. I like a feel a plankton squish between my sharp teeth.

In my next dream I am a clawless kitty. I gotta use my whole mouth to scale a tree and my cat-tail to find balance. I catch my body’s reflection in a crystal water of a lake after I roll across a tan sand in a full body spiral. I think I am a hungry jungle. I think I am a gust of wind. I see my open mouth and am wondering if my jaw can stretch wider than this. I wonder if this is a smile or a growl face that I make when I dip my open mouth into a water. I wonder how many stupid fish will swim in. A face is what you make it. You can make a any face.

I’ll sharpen each claw on a nearby rock everyday while I wait. Then I’m up a tree fast, so fast you can barely see my electric light. Time’s up.