Cat People (1982)

when twilight crawls down the lawns of the old
New Orleans zoo
shadows lean like collapsing bars
at dawn she
wakes naked and bloody-faced alone
to the crisp lip-curling spank of cat
pungent cement
her own basso profundo moan

my panthera pardis …

go then through the empty streets as the black city mumbles
the Desire Project where ambulances won’t go
with its broken flat windows leaking Cajun smells
past boughs skeined with Spanish moss
in the drowned French quarter
the graveyard sinking
in Mississippi mud

now this old swamp pops and creaks
around her entering
above, the moon is beaten gold
a crocodile god’s eye

pole the boat past the cayman’s swirl
to the shack trapped in the bayou
black she waits
frightened panting
enter slow
don’t forget
to chain her down