Once the smoke and dust cleared,
the door opened. Nothing moved
from the rocket until the floor tipped
and out dropped a tiger.
It was groggy from the long flight,
it got to its feet, unsteadily rubbed
its stripes against the silver rocket leg
as it blinked around at the red planet.
It stretched its neck and smelled the air,
tail wagging. Tigers were the only
Earth animals to really adapt to
the conditions here. Few creatures
had lasted long. The tiger watched a
wheel of starlings resettle in a
brass colored tree not far away.
The cat’s big head nodded,
there was a good scent there.
It moved away from the scorched ground,
across the rubble, silently into the white
Martian flowers.
Annotated Martian Tigers:
This is a from my not-yet published
next poetry collection. For a while
I was writing my own version of
Ray Bradbury's Martian Chronicles.
This story and the previous post,
'All Shakespeare's Birds' are from it.
Also there's a whole other novel
set on Mars, not yet published either.
It features a game show host and
reincarnation.
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