TOY TIGER

The cold art
of clutch and escape the clock-
work tiger’s approximate lockstep jiggety ricketish a taut

spring coiled
in the belly a bent key
twisted in the hip the slurred black and orange seething

gearwheels
what makes it tick inching
over the kitchen floor its hollow head rocking side to side

the gimcrack
mechanism winding down lifting
a paw the gear screak and crunch it seems to speak a steel

lisp its slump
forward legs paddling the jammed
tongue hunting in its grease the body churning in place.