A Woman's Reply to Delmore

 

   The heavy bear who goes with me ...

   Stretches to embrace the very dear

   With whom I would walk without him near

   Touches her grossly, although a word

   Would bare my heart and make me clear

   --Delmore Schwartz

 

At the zoo, two sun bears approach each other

down in their pit. They are big fuzzy things

whose brown chests are stamped like targets with rings.

They sniff at each other and stamp and roar

 

up at the people, who point and grin.

Why do you think I want your words more

than your belly and bone, covered in fur?

The bears lick each other a bit, then turn


together away from us and lumber

to their cave. We wait for something mysterious,

but the cave's furred shadows remain in dusk.

 

Around me the crowd dissipates. Delmore,

all of our leaps, not just yours, end in gravity.

Wake up, take something--my sun, my honey--from me.


 

Hi Friends,

 

I was just going through some old poems... I've had this poem for years and it seems like no one likes it but I find that I still do, especially since just now when I tweaked the more embarrassing lines a little bit.

 

It's a reply to Delmore's "The Heavy Bear Who Goes With Me" and I almost think one would have to run the Delmore poem in its entirety too, which probably doesn't speak so well to my having creating a Work of Art That Stands on Its Own. But oh well.

 

I hope everyone's having a very nice autumn. I am, except for the fact that my college boyfriend died of a massive heart attack a week ago. I'm so sad and pissed ... I hadn't spoken to Lee in about 18 years, but I always thought, just took for granted, that I would again some day. And it's not even that I had some Big Thing to say--it wasn't one of those situations where there was a whole bunch left unresolved or unsaid or anything. I just

thought I'd have the chance to say "hey" and "what have you been up to" sometime, and now I can't.

 

As near as I can tell, the lesson to be learned from this is: talk to everyone, all the time. Or at least as much as you can stand to, anyway.

 

Much loves,

Dawn

photo courtesy of Jody Plant

 

Dawn Corrigan has published poems, short fiction, humor and other miscellany in a number of print and online journals. Currently she has work forthcoming from Dogzplot, Wigleaf, the poetry section of The Nervous Breakdown, and Bardic Tales and Sage Advice, Vol. II. She was one of the original bloggers at TNB when the site launched in 2006, and now serves as associate editor at Girls with Insurance. She lives in Gulf Breeze, Florida with her husband, Feldman the Wonder Dog, and a small herd of cats.