FROZEN TIGERS ACROSS THE CITY / DAVID SPICER

Tigers stood frozen on pedestals across the city, right paws outstretched, poised to shake hands. A hundred appeared overnight gracing the lawns of cafes, clinics, banks. They were cool to touch, of many colors and designs. Nobody determined their origin or materials. People thought them new gods. Skeptics scoffed and called them the latest illusion from a billionaire prankster.

Over the vast town they posed, some in costumes of neon green or blue, others painted yellow, gold, and, of course, orange. One with fifteen small suns and three moons across his torso, a gentle smile of eyes gazing nowhere. A favorite: the Elvis Tiger, with indigo song suit and fur collar. Fans worshipped him, bowed to his pedestal. And a white tiger with a man screaming into infinity. Chemistry beakers and formulas adorned another.

Students wrote to newspapers, blogged on websites, conducted town halls about the frozen tigers. Some afraid of their awakening. Crackpots declared them aliens. They signed petitions to destroy the tigers. No one knew what would happen. The tigers solved the problem. They yawned in unison and became real.

David Spicer has, in pursuit of the word, worked as  paper boy, dishwasher, bottle loader, record warehouser, carpet roll dragger, burger flopper, ditch digger, weather observer, furniture mover, Manpower flunky, gas pumper, bookseller, tutor, high school babysitter, magazine and book editor and publisher, typesetter, proofreader, carney barker, chocolate twister, artist’s model, and  clinical trial subject for a laxative. Author of one collection, Everybody Has a Story, four chapbooks, and six unpublished poetry manuscripts, he has work in Alcatraz, Nitty Gritty, Aura, Brown God, Hinchas de Poesia, Crack the Spine, Dirtflask, Spudgun, Mad Rush, Used Furniture Review, Fur-Lined Ghettos, Spudgun, Bop Dead City, The American Poetry Review, Ploughshares, Resurgo, and elsewhere.