Stripes from many Tails                                                                  

I grab my favorite blanket, it feels like a polar bears insulation when you’re wrapped in it, you simply vanish, folding it tightly into the big suitcase like a nightmare’s canvas, it disappears, the tiger imprint a cool reminder of the end of the road.

Clothes are all packed, tire pressure, blinkers and lights are perfect, the rain is gently falling a soft sign of the earth’s renewal; preceding and polishing the pavement, creating obsidian before us, destination so close and so far away.

As the city slips behind, my explanation to the passenger query, “Don’t worry my dear, it’s a monster filled city” the moments and pavement recede with a quiet longing we imagine an enduring mythology.

Peaks of mountains’ tower nearby, Zeus and Hera’s own monument on the rise, passing by the road to my mother’s I hit the gas, don’t want my day under her smoldering tongue, my wallet has a destination; full of cats, full of fun, it’s predetermined, mine this time.

The monsters we seek are only schooners of the deep imagination, creations of gods magnitude, be careful or they’ll hunt you, multitudes of sweat, day old meat, stripes, hay and fur will fill your senses, make the wonderment of your imagination complete.

It’s been two hours and I really gotta pee, stop at the gas station and two spun out girls accost me, with torn knees in their jeans and teeth incomplete snarling savagely, they wanna bleed me, they’re asking for money, they wanna shakedown, silently; I pray for strength, words of assimilation spew from my lips, green vomit painting the semantic waves, a dull light faintly shimmers, and they slowly walk away.

With relief we’re back on the road, our speed increasing as the morning dew recedes from the uppermost tips of the plants into the deep reaches of their individual stomata, the glorious sun rises like a cathedral in the distance beckoning as a sanctuary, oil drips staining the obsidian polish as our Mustang pounds out her rhythm, rivers of milky way leading into Leo’s majestically gruff sneeze.

In Spokane now, the city is alive, it’s teeming with approaching vigilantism, soaring like eagles on the wind we leave the stench of the city behind, two more miles the great billboards with the MGM lion fill our sight. I remember the few months that my ex-husbands cousins lived here, like the span of their rental, their marriage was as short.

 The next sign bares a small yellow cub, instinct reflecting in his dark blue eyes, with thirty six stripes each one a different size, it tells us to turn right. We pull into the drive we’re finally here, this place full of mystery of unknown links to mammalian god’s, roars and screams fill the air, like women tortured and calling while they pull out their hair.

 I can’t wait to butcher the chickens, dissect their individual limbs and place in the cooler, tentatively lure Monster to the side of her cage, with the tips of my fingers, fulfill her belly, ignite her rage, Leonard the cat strolls the fence tops, mewling ever so loudly he angers the lions, his freedom ever so eloquently stripping them of their pride.

Skipping up to the gate, I see a sign, and with heartfelt despair, I am reminded, not the world shall run on my time, eyes leer back as I peer through the gate, feels like supper, should I be afraid?