Bear
          for Maurice Kenny

Monday on the way to work
I must have taken a wrong turn.
Bougainvillea climbed the doors,

an unfamiliar alley
in the silence of trees.
The bear rose before me

in a cloud of fur,
roared
in every language at once.

I threw the dictionary at him.
I threw my calculator at him,
the keys in my pockets, my credit cards.

I threw the Bhagavad Gita, its pages dog-eared,
the Constitution, the original,
all Rilke's letters.

I threw the Cabala at the bear,
My God.
            I shouted.

The bear's shadow grew all around me.

Copyright © 2009 Chad Sweeney All rights reserved
from Arranging the Blaze
Anhinga Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission