The Black Bear

From where, the first night, did you arrive? 
With the dusk? The smell of sleek meats, 
the maggot growth below the plastic,

perforated lid? The second night,
the dogs barked earlier. The tree line shivered 
with thick stink. Dad taped a flashlight

to his Glock. When you stood 
at the yard’s edge, Mom slipped 
on the porch steps.

What of your curled feet,
you sagging toward us—upright, 
the human not there? Understand,

someone is always watching you 
with a loaded gun. I could slug its gut, 
Dad said. From here. Other cops had.

Bears lie everywhere: in ravines,
leaned against a tree, in the south swamp, 
slouched behind our neighbor’s garage.

The balloons of their stomachs popped, 
unspooled. I knew it was August, that hunger 
had spread its hard syrup through the air,

that a steel bullet could slice clean through 
the black hull, land lost in the long grass. 
That after, turkey vultures always follow,




angling slowly at the earth.
They drill down with the rising hide.
Tell me, where have you felt the guns

on your body? From which dark chamber 
have you arrived? When you hauled
away your great flanks, let my mother stand,

my father was panting. Turning back slowly 
toward the house to put on his old face
in the moth-stained light.

Read more from Issue 17.1.