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Poem-a-day

Rewilding

Tigers
                in the moonlight
catch you
                by the eye—

once, at the zoo,
                on Christmas
they overcame 
                their wall
and took
                a tormentor
by the throat,        
                a tiger’s
eye for an eye
                as it got taken
down
                by a rifle
in the sky

last 
                of the big
cats
                somebody
has its pelt now

somebody              
                has its meat
in a frost
                free Frigidaire
freezer.

                To dream
a tiger is
                to dream
of change
                if it is 
walking
                toward you
you are 
                ready if it
leaps 
                upon you
from the
                trees you
are ill
                prepared.

Either way
                they shimmer
and skulk
                we must
not use
                these words
bolt
                muzzle
grisly
                throat.

Copyright © 2025 by D. A. Powell. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on August 18, 2025, by the Academy of American Poets.

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D. A. Powell

D. A. Powell
Photo credit: Matt Valentine
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About Poem-a-Day

Poem-a-Day is the original and only daily digital poetry series featuring over 250 new, previously unpublished poems by today’s talented poets each year. Randall Mann is the Guest Editor of August. Read or listen to a Q&A with Mann about his curatorial process, and learn more about the 2025 Guest Editors. Support Poem-a-Day.  

If you have any questions about Poem-a-Day, visit our Poem-a-Day FAQ.

Previous Poems

Title Author Date
Praise Song Hafizah Augustus Geter 01/18/2023
Everything is Exactly the Same as it Was the Day Before Ina Cariño 01/17/2023
Ars Poetica Nabila Lovelace 01/16/2023
Confession Countee Cullen 01/15/2023
The Forest Road Charlotte Mew 01/14/2023
Who Can Govern Themselves Out of Governance? A. H. Jerriod Avant 01/13/2023
Whipping K. D. Harryman 01/12/2023
Castnet Seafood Karisma Price 01/11/2023
Materials for a Gravestone Rubbing Matthew Wimberley 01/10/2023
I’m Not Faking My Astonishment, Honest Paige Lewis 01/09/2023

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