Bear Country
The kid down the street has taught my son
to play dead, eyes squeezed tight, tongue
lolling at a cartoonish angle. Play dead,
you say, and he plops down belly-first
in the grass and waits for all our imagined
dangers to evaporate. It’s cute but useless,
his inexperience at pretending to be a body
because any capable gunman in any school
will recognize the ruse and that’s that.
Maybe there’s a grizzly bear in a classroom
in Michigan, where the children flop
to the floor like rag dolls, leaving the bear
to lumber away in search of a honey pot
or a picnic basket. Call the park ranger,
the zookeeper, that dude who wrangles
the bear at the county fair and ask how animals
are so easily fooled, how a country is duped
into allowing bears to maraud the library,
to raid the cafeteria for a slice of pizza
and a cowboy cookie. Childhood is brief,
too fleeting to ask a two-year-old to wonder
how the dirt nap feels. Let him grow up,
grow a beard and move gentle through
the wilderness each Spring. Let the hunters
tremble at his coming. Let them lay down
their rifles and admire his gorgeous antlers.
***
Photograph of W. Todd Kaneko by Tyler Steimle.
