The Painted Wooden Leg

outside Eureka in a cheap corral with a fifteen-foot chain 
link fence   a retired insurance salesman raises tigers     

he lets Cindy rub her cheeks in the eggy fur of the cubs' 
bellies   feed them milk and soaked toast from her defenseless 

thumb    the girl holds a cub outside the tigers' cage 
the mother's paw (smell of a garbage scow) can only reach 

so far through the wires    the dumb cub   its mother   chirp 
like broken machines   their faces   smeared with petroleum
 
jelly   glow with a dull dirty sheen   Cindy wipes and wipes 
at tiny eyes    at 2am   her father fighting dream claws 

in the damp bedroom    Cindy scales the fence    balances 
on top     her small slipping sneakers squeak   the tigers 

circle underneath    yawn    stretch    fall   collapse 
in heaps     scratch their spines against the meaty straw
   
their tender white bellies call   inviting