smiles, the lacquer-black wood that defines
their species. The wide-hatted tourists’

children finger the nicks in their bellies,
stuff their ears with daffodils. Each winter

they sleep in dim souvenir shops, untouched
and unbothered by the pincushion cold—

until the season of breaking moves them
into the yards of summer homes,

where the zoom lens sun bleaches
their faces until they are grey,

then dun, then nothing more
than the shadows of trees

they were and the beasts
someone wanted them to be.

perhaps they would wonder
what love could turn them into—

the reared paws clawed, the teeth
opening from their newly watered

mouths. What life they could shake
from the river trout, the unsuspecting

tourist children, the store manager
who stubs his toe on the bears’

guiltless trunks and calls them stupid
and fucking. And when the town is steamed

with these bodies, maybe the bears would
make a home in the Christian family

restaurant, eating through the frozen cod,
a bale of potatoes meant to be transformed

by the simplicity of mayonnaise,
a square vat of babbling oil.