The chainsaw bears are unhappy—
no one can tell this from their scabbed-on

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.