Rachel Carney: a poem

I am trying not to write a poem about you

Looking at Tiger in a Storm, I imagine I'm seeing it for the first time, in a gallery perhaps, hanging high up on a towering wall. My overall impression: green, vegetation, the crashing of the wind, panic, and there is something there in all that green: you, battling your way through undergrowth, a cave-man in your element, forcing your way inside. It's too late, you're there now, stuck between me and the paint, casting about for a cloak or a hat, or even a tail, or a pair of tiger eyes, and there's nothing for it, you'll have to stay, so words fill up the space, forming a plot around the bulk of you, forging a path for me to join you.

But when I emerge in the green, soaking wet, peering through sheets of diagonal rain, all I can see is the tiger.

Rachel Carney is a poet and PhD student based in Cardiff. Her poems, reviews and articles have been published in several magazines including the New Welsh Review, Poetry Salzburg Review, Ink Sweat and Tears, Mslexia and Wales Arts Review. She has had two poems shortlisted for the Bridport Prize.