Her markings are striking, pure black lines painted onto a fine sable coat, wet glossy ink drawn in patterns of perfect symmetry. She’s marked with the crisp, exact arcs and zigzags of the deepest jungle creatures, the jaguar, the leopard,  the serval.  The lined eyes of Egyptian funerary artists grace her features,  the flow of perfect stripes moves over the crown and down her neck, the fearful geometry of the tiger ripples down her front legs. 

When fear comes nestled right up next to safety, both arriving in almost the same moment, the juxtaposition is so instant and alarming that you yell, curse, and laugh. The laughter is called nervous laughter, but I think it’s deeper than just the butterflies - your entire nervous system has been shocked while you still stand secure, and laughter uncoils the spring that instantly wound tight, ready to fight or flee for life.

I looked up just in time to see her whisper-yell “Down with the patriarchy!” with a raised first and swinging breasts. Her smile was radiant, her eyes were fierce, she’d read one too many tome of the canon. The dead white males had piled too high, the switch had flipped right then and there on that night and she was ready to burn it down with ebullience and glee.