Loop

     (62 seconds of the extinct Thylacine or Tasmanian Tiger on film.)
 
Within the box, it growls, it twists,
scowls through its repertoire of tricks,
ignores the camera – or gurns up close, turns
again, to flop, to gnaw that paw-trapped bone.
 
It paces out its trap of light; one hundred reps
while hindquarters zither bars of sun;
claws cage’s mesh, hangs stretched
as if to take the measure of itself.
 
You saw. You see. And what we’ve got is what was shot:
short clips, fragments caught and stitched
together in a loop of black and white.
 
Nine lives? Not quite. It’s down. It’s out.
It’s on its feet and born again. Like a repetition
compulsion, like… like reincarnated light.
 

Cliff Forshaw

in collection, Vandemonian, 2013, Arc Publications,
ISBN 978-1-9046147-2–2 (hbk), ISBN 978-1-9046146-0-9 (pbk) (& Kindle);
in chapbook, Tiger, 2011, HappenStance, ISBN 978-1-9059396-2-6;
Carol Rumens’ Poem of the Week, 22 November 2011, The Guardian online;
featured on Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio programme (16 Sep. 2013),
Shadows in the Scrub