Free Tiger, Tiger by Margaux Fragoso

eyelash, all accounted for. Hair, fingernails, hip bones, shins, eyes, all accounted for. Be still, I would tell them like the conductor of some grand orchestra, you are all under my power now, my brain is in charge of you all. I could feel the tiny hairs in my nostrils and the down on my forearms and thighs and calves listen and obey. I could hear the gate to some tremulous heaven open and summon, palms, freckles, chest, ribs, hips, jaw, private parts. Like Noah leading the animals in pairs to the wide cedarwood ark, I hurried my heart and eardrums and navel into the wide white peace. When every part of me was packed up in the ark and sent down the rolling waves, the peace would come, drowsy as the sun, warming the wood of the cross that Jesus lay upon, warming the thorns that pierced his forehead, winking off the nails in his feet and palms.
    Now, alone in the attic, I saw the pink wood swing hanging by brown braided ropes, looking shabbier than usual. I sat on it and started to push with my feet, but soon realized I couldn’t get myself high enough.
    I went to Blackhead’s tank and saw him huddled in a corner. “Wake up!” I said, banging on the glass. “Wake up!”
    When I saw his furry head rise, I lifted the chicken wire that was his ceiling. I pictured seeing the wire above, with all the round holes in it, suddenly lifting, and the hand surging down, and taking my body into it. I was rising, rising with the hand that was holding me just so snugly, and yet I was afraid. Blackhead was afraid. Poor Blackhead! I kissed his fur. I put his body to my face and breathed in his hot rodent smell. Poor, poor baby to be lifted from his nice small warm tank! But it was nicer outside; there was more space. I whispered this into his pink ear, but still the little heart beat too fast inside my hand.
    My eyes turned back to the glass tank. Inside was a plastic yellow bowl that contained brown food pellets and a water bottle with a long metal tip. The wood shavings he slept on smelled sweet and dusky.
    I set Blackhead on the floor. “Go, Blackhead! Run! Run!” I yelled, clapping my hands. But he wouldn’t run; he just turned about in circles and sniffed at the floor. I knew I should put him back, but instead I headed for the stairs.
    Downstairs, everyone erupted from hiding places, yelling, “Surprise!” There was a cake on the kitchen table, with candles. Peter lit one; then he touched that newly lit candle to all the others, until they, too, were burning. I looked to the faces around me, all lit. Flames were in the eyes of Ricky, Miguel, and Inès, in the eyes of my mother.
    “Make a wish,” Peter said, and I had to think of what my wish should be.
    I blew hard and the flames turned to blackened wicks. All had extinguished but two, which Peter gently blew out for me.
    “What was your wish?” he whispered, leaning over so I could whisper in his ear.
    Normally, I wouldn’t have told, for fear of destroying the wish’s power, but at this moment, I felt giddy enough to get away with anything. “A tiger’s tail,” I told him.
    “Eight is the most beautiful age for a girl,” said Peter, after I opened my presents. “Though it makes me sad to see you growing up.”
    I was a little sad about it, too. When I was four or five, people would tell me that I would grow up, but I wouldn’t believe them. I would not believe that my abilities as a child would end—fitting my body under tables, squeezing it under chairs and into tight corners. How I treasured this animal freedom, the joy of being able to tuck my legs and arms under, to slip through a hole in a fence or in the space between a giant tree trunk and a brick wall; this was my glory. Like a mouse living in an opening where the wall has cracked, or the brown recluse who builds her web in a wood beam in the ceiling and can see everything, or the ant that has a whole city of intersecting tunnels in the dirt, it’s the glory of Blackhead . . .
    Blackhead! I started to