Patricia Goodrich

The bears came back last night

although the night itself was starless.

I saw them from a distance—

two cubs close

and a sow emerging from the brush—

but their presence was enough

to make my body go stiff

like the hairs that guard

their humpback necks.

When I was young,

they came near every night

till I feared the terror

that waited behind closed eyes.

Brown bears sprung from rivers,

huge paws spearing fish

until they spotted me.

Black bears laid hillside ambush.

Surrounded, I had to travel.

There was no other way.

I’d wake shaken, exhausted

by my flight.

They say you can’t hunt bear long

before he’s hunting you.

He circles, creeping up behind.

Despite his size, he moves

with stealth, quietly.

Years have lapsed since

they lost my trail...marriage

and children covered track....

but now they have my scent again.

Now the bears are back.

Perhaps their appearance is a message

from some restless Chippewa spirit

bound to broken treaties.

Perhaps the bear lives within,

banished to some secret place

all those years I was secure.

Perhaps I’ve grown weak.

Perhaps he senses wounds,

and I seem a likely prey.

I’ve heard that if you

strip the fur of bear away,

the naked frame looks human.

I think about it sometimes:

My leg being burned, tossed

into some hospital incinerator,

gone to ash ahead of me;

and how at that moment

I never knew the difference.

I mean, it would seem

that even disconnected

I would have felt its pain,

that those cells wretched away

would call to sister corpuscles

in their burning moments, and

I would miss myself, at least a little.

But I’m all here,

wondering how I can feel complete

and yet a part of this body

to which I’ve grown

accustomed, wondering

how much can you cut off

and still be whole.

A Sunday afternoon

sitting on a neighbor’s couch,

my father draped an arm

over my stiff shoulder,

my back erect, my eyes

looking for a place to look,

so uncomfortable with

the unfamiliar closeness.

Did he say he loved me,

or just that he’d kill

any bastard who laid

his hands on me?

I was twelve.

And I believed him.

After all, how many times

had he cut the left hind foot,

the lucky one, off a rabbit

and given it to me

for being his good girl?