Why did we give them comic strip names?
Like smoked oysters in a tin can,
they seemed to belong next to the fort at Mackinac.
The bears waltzed a soporific caribbean rhythm,
filtering the smell of hot dogs through their beards.
They rocked the rusted bars of their pathetic jail.
Their heads were bloody near the temples.
Nacre eyes were brackish and stony.
Black hair with bivalve cowlicks.
Kids surrounded and giggled in pastel bathing suits and
cardboard indian headbands with feathers dyed orange.
We saw those bears as trotting wild things.
That cage reassuring our security?
It would have been so easy to let them out.
The pop tops on oyster cans peel easily.
After the 50s we took the easy way out.
Tacky ursine landfills, barefoot steps and more guilt.
I am still fixated on this memory—why can’t I shuck it?
