{"id":17596,"date":"2022-04-01T00:01:07","date_gmt":"2022-04-01T05:01:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/?p=17596"},"modified":"2022-03-29T18:04:28","modified_gmt":"2022-03-29T23:04:28","slug":"depression-with-figurative-language","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/archives\/17596","title":{"rendered":"Depression, with Figurative Language"},"content":{"rendered":"

When a Bengal tiger was found living
\n————<\/span>atop a mountain of chicken bones in the back
\nroom of a Harlem apartment, police officers
\n————<\/span>rappelled from the rooftop by rope swing
\n& shot it full of ketamine. As the photograph
\n————<\/span>shows, the first dart only served to further
\nanger the animal, fixed jaw-open in this square
\n————<\/span>of image I fuss over like a loose tooth
\nin my months of magical thinking.
\n————<\/span>The tangled latticework of the window bars
\nthe tiger lunges toward, swathed in shadow,
\n————<\/span>the gray bricks of the building lashed
\nwith the afterlife of rain, the fangs latched
\n————<\/span>onto the borders of the frame as a gesture
\nof fear those without hands can only express
\n————<\/span>through the mouth. Nowhere to be found
\nis the man who first carried the tiger
\n————<\/span>into the building swaddled in a blanket,
\nfeeding it clumpy milk from a bottle,
\n————<\/span>leaning his face closer for a sample
\nof its stale breath as it snored in his lap,
\n————<\/span>assembling a sandbox for the cat
\nwhen its muscles erupted into a landscape
\n————<\/span>of steep hillsides he tried his best to tame
\nwith the braided hair of dolls, discs of cow liver,
\n————<\/span>strips of tablecloth sprayed with cologne
\nhe tasked it to find hidden behind
\n————<\/span>dressers, tucked under the rug, slipped into
\nthe gap between the wall & the tank
\n————<\/span>where he kept his saltwater crocodile.
\nSometimes he\u2019d crack open the door, turn
\n————<\/span>his head away & dip his hand into the hungry
\nmouth waiting there, letting it gnaw
\n————<\/span>at his skin until he could trace the warp
\n& weft of the cuts with a pen. He kept it
\n————<\/span>secret nonetheless, blaming the gashes
\nhe couldn\u2019t stanch on the neighbor\u2019s stocky pitbull,
\n————<\/span>pouring vinegar on the wood floor
\nto disguise the smell of piss, lying
\n————<\/span>to the cops as they came pounding at the door,
\ntrying to stash in his closet what
\n————<\/span>in the end took six men to lift.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Matthew Tuckner<\/a><\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When a Bengal tiger was found living ————atop a mountain of chicken bones in the back room of a Harlem apartment, police officers ————rappelled from the rooftop by rope swing & shot it full of ketamine. As the photograph ————shows, the first dart only served to further anger the animal, fixed jaw-open in this square […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2247,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[71],"tags":[25],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Jypy-4zO","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17596"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2247"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17596"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17596\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17625,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17596\/revisions\/17625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}