black bear story

by MARA ADAMITZ SCRUPE

    tell me again the story of the rug over your woolly 
wobbling head     
in pink thrush sprawl the dawn say the name
for anxious/ near poisoned: Swamp Bay

tell the subtle twitch of nasal passages/ snout’s nervous 
quiver         say again everything you know 
of drafting—an architect’s devising of desire—repeat 
to me the seven bourgeois sins 
played out in the lair
that kept us cool in summer     the cryptoporticus
    that housed our bestial republic     brute
    as chattel shook-up & splayed
on a hot afternoon         explain to me cane-

trained     a rose espalier flattened
& sprawling or bent 
& pegged         in clouds too damp for crowning 
following behind me     find you 
you tricky ursine mascot bastard slinging your skull side-
    to-side     in fresh freckled stroke in after

-sun’s onslaught or strawberry stigmata/ our blinds drawn 
    against the light—how good it feels to feel
every cut     cut 
    clean         our pelts shining
at easternmost edge of day’s arrival/ sole 
    survivors mark the downpour’s 
drubbing/ safe     post-tornado past the hurricane 
past pledge or diction distributed on a breeze     as venin
    ferine in terra incognita     as a tree mid
    -forest feels neither gust nor gale protected
    from within its circle/ among its own kind/ its torso 

perfectly cylindrical/ dermis smooth     unscarred 
as those without/ at perimeter’s edge—blast-bent sentries 
& misshapen palisades—shield the tenderer tribe 
tutor me in ursine ken on keen olfaction on huge
    omnivorous appetites 
    or ravenousness past the accident 
that did its damnedest         the antidote to dialogic   
indifference/ in consolation—you never knew me
did you/ my coyote cravings—you shaggy bruin
my old antagonist on hind legs my alluring almost vocal
    amanuensis/ tell me again the sin  
of sadness/ venial tristitia/ make me laugh win me over
wear that lovey-dovey blanket     bare your nose 

    your mouth/ clenched teeth/ absent shelter 
beastly & obliging     coax & grace     your thick hairy 
body that enticing reservoir     that hirsute 
sweetness     commonplace as prey     altricial 
as newborns & either one or both of us     the predator/ frisky
    as cubs holed up horsing around under bear 
moon’s earthen coverlet     cloistered & coupled a coital 
ensemble/ bared     exposed snug in hibernation’s ripe
    consummate as kindling/ sparked
    in deep green slippery 
our heads hooded soon enough     for sleep