Day Twelve

Today's words:

Tiger

Legs

Tank

Lasso

Calculator

Napkin

Just as a tiger

Walks on four legs,

So the air in the tank

Allows the old woman to breathe, throwing a lasso

Around the calculator

Of her mind, keeping her thoughts clear. She applies a napkin

To her lips. She looks at the napkin.

Her lipstick has left tiger

Stripes on it. The result is on the calculator:

The legs are a lasso,

Drawing another one into the tank.

But what if the plan should tank?

I'll shred the napkin,

And unknot the lasso.

No one will ever know how we stalked the tiger

Until heaviness possessed our legs.

I've run the simulations through the calculator.

And who are you? The calculator

Of our fates? You know the fish in the tank

Have no legs.

So look down at your napkin

While I help the tiger

To evade your lasso.

I know you catch souls with that lasso.

And you believe destiny is merely a giant calculator.
Remember that old gas ad about putting a tiger

In your tank?

Don't think that your doodles on this napkin

Have any legs.

The girl's legs

Went out from under her, caught in his lasso,

While he used the napkin

As a makeshift calculator

To figure the dimensions of the tank

He'd need built to contain the tiger.

Legs, if used properly, can act as a calculator,

But otherwise are as useless as throwing a lasso around a fish tank

Or using a napkin to try to catch a tiger.