Aunt Jennifer's Tigers

Aunt Jennifer's tigers prance across a screen
Bright topaz denizens of a world of green
They do not fear the man beneath the tree
They prance in sleek chivalric certainty

Aunt Jennifer's fingers, fluttering through her wool
Find even the ivory needle hard to pull
The massive weight of Uncle's wedding band
Sits heavily on Aunt Jennifer's hand

When Aunt is dead, her terrified hands will lie
still ringed with ordeals she was mastered by.
The tigers in the panel that she made
Will go on prancing, proud and unafraid.