“Will you have some sherry?” asked
the million-dollar baby-faced killer.
He filled my glass, and the whole room
sucked me into its sharkish smile.
“You’re fond of hunting,” I said.
“Did you shoot all those guys on the wall?”
He nodded and raised the cuff of his pants.
His left leg was ivory to the knee.
“That Bengal tiger was my first success.
Then I matched wits with a white whale
and won. After that I went in for elephants.
And then I heard about the last buffalo
in South Dakota. Very educated.
He speaks fluent Apache. He writes
by scratching his hooves in the dirt.
He’s writing a history of the Civil War,
So naturally I took him alive. Day
and night I keep him locked in my cellar.
His breath heats this house all winter.
His heart charges all my rooms with light.
In my worst dreams I see them folding up
like a paper hat, and my dead tiger roaring
and my dead whale swimming off the wall
and my buffalo climbing out of the cellar.”