Sometimes Love Can Stand No Other: The Love Story of Asim and Melati

She was everybody’s hope. He was his own.

–

He had been caged for 224 years,

a fearsome symmetrical number,

71 free to roam the mirror forest night canopy,

a tyger yearning to be a true tiger and not a Tigger,

a lonely pacing streak of orange and black

hungering to be proudly the last of his kind.

–

She lived all her life, a London darling,

a jasmine flower never knowing an Asian sun—

and she was their jewel in the crown.

He was brought to her on a Rajah’s throne,

named to be her protector, guardian, defender;

ten days of chuffing convinced all they were right.

–

He was famished. He could never be hers.

–

And when the glass that separated them opened,

and he no longer saw the reflection of himself,

and just prey, a ray of the little lamb

he thought and always knew was there,

he did what tigers were born to do:

He pounced. He ate. He created death.

–

She was everybody’s hope. He was his own.

Note:

It helps to know some William Blake poetry and English imperialist history to get at some of the meanings in this poem. The poem is based on a news story about two tigers in a London zoo who were intended to be perfect mates for each, but ended with the male, Asim killing the female, Melati.