Poem

Poem

“That a bear brings forth her young informous and unshapen, which she fashioneth after by licking them over, is an opinion not only … common with us at present, but hath been of old delivered by ancient writers.”–Sir Thomas Browne, Pseudoxia Epidemica, Book III, Chapter VI

I did nothing–
ended my hunger,
then slept.
There were others.
I dreamed
my fur grew,
snow came and drifted up the cave mouth,
my heart opened, and a bee crawled out.
Under their lids
my eyes caught blue fire.
I saw
the wind, and snarled.
Everywhere I curled there were claws.
I fought
rock, and lost,
branches, and lost,
water, and lost.
I could not think
my breath.
My belly opened and a bird flew in.
The sky tried to follow.
Swollen
clouds drift
through my blood.
I cannot close, am used,
my sleep their forest.
When will I wake?
Loosed
voices speak from me
sounds I can make nothing of.
Admitting pain
I tear my body
and it is done:
flowers push through my fur,
the bee thaws,

and there is something with me
that I have forgotten into life,
wingless,
unimaginable,
curled close.
I turn to it my whole body,
my tongue.
What I feel is not love.
This is mine.
It is not yet quite
finished.