BEAR

There is a bear in the house
His angry thuds
Shudder the walls!
He howwwwllls for prey
Which can be anything,
He's omnivorous;
A kitten will do
A woman,
A small, wincing child.
He gait is explosive at times;
And, raging, he towers over
The two of you
Cowering tightly,
Creating a clan of
Three crescent moons,
Concentrically huddled,
Like Russian dolls
Within dolls, within dolls,
Bloodless,
Only bloody.

By some grace
His hibernations are frequent
There are whole afternoons
Or evenings of respite, and
After a good rest he is calm,
Eerily so ....and with time
Begins to transform
Before your widening eyes:
Though impossibly tall,
He's down now on all fours;
His thick neck thins, elongates --
Fleshy lips replace the scowl;
Peering from coiled woolen fur
His eyes soften and swell
Until, long-lashed, angelic
He's a bear no more!
But something rather ....llama-like,
Lunching laconically
Upon a cud -- as is usual,
Between transmogrifications.
 
And then! due to some small infraction,
As swift as sudden wind
Ripping from the north
He bursts to full girth
A behemoth on giant paws
His claws wicked spikes!
The humongous mass
Casts a Colossus's shadow
On claustrophobic walls --
The tender vapory eyes now
Satanic. Steel...
The attack is vicious
But you remain statue-still,
You wish yourself a rock
You think, "be rock"
While in reality you feel a flailing
As of a tthousand phantom limbs!
As for him, finally slaked
He lumbers clumsily to his den
Where the foraging is worse
But it's cooler, and dim.

It's grown late;
Light has forsaken the treetops
And you and your little one
Lie face to face, on kissing pillows
Arms flung over one another,
A conspiracy in darkness.
You whisper tiny things
Or tremulously sing,
To lull yourselves to sleep.
You feel the rapid heartbeat
In her back, which slows
As her expirations deepen.
For now, you are safe again
As if by some pact --
Prone, no longer prey;
Numinous. Inviolable.

This night, you dream of the sea
Oh yes, the sea!
Where the broken go to heal --
Your dream is yellows and greens
It's the Aegean,
Which you've never actually seen --
And, to be sure, treacherous things
Lurk beneath the glitter
Of even those welcome waters;
Charitably, though,
The dream does not delve that deep,
But remains warm in hue,
Unlike you! in your mate-less humbling,
But forgotten for a time is your predator
Lurking a continent away,
Stomach already grumbling.

So you race rtoward the sea
And deliciously plunge! --
Free of the gargantuan belly
The yowling yawning maw
The inevitability of dawn
The certain
Insensate
LUNGE.