The Tuesday Poem: Refeaturing Michael Harlow & “I Am A Tyger”

‘I am a Tyger’

Despite 10 years

of ‘talking cure’, twice

weekly, such intimate

conversation between strangers,

he remains quite convinced

that he is still, you know,

a tyger

As a child no taller

than a table leg, he always

suspected he was a cat

It was the last of the litter,

Chatterwot, the family favourite,

who taught him, age 11,

to speak ‘cat’

And he did. Not dog

or stag or unicorn, he knows

himself to be a tyger, ‘burning

bright’, in a body made strange

And of course he believes

he was adopted – his true pa...