Berkshire Territorial    


Cinnamon snout at the fruit, raspberry tongue 
loose at vines she thins to near ruins, she can 

sense my hunger grow until I am so famished 
to catch a glimpse, I am mere breaths away from 

welcoming her unbidden, unafraid, admiring 
each footprint she retraces over her lifetime 

to claim her rightful meal. American as this rocky 
terrain blasted to build our home, solitary forager 

among the lost timbers of her childhood, on a good 
day, neighbors click the camera as she knocks down

a birdfeeder here, a gas grill there. A bear big as
gossip, waking more and more easily to human

voices when her ancestral forests thaw, she offers 
me, the newcomer, a chance to embrace her shock 

of fur & claw, erase blood dreams from my afternoon 
on the hammock, the page I am reading about her 

ample love for her cubs, lost. Her wish is that I not 
throw my hardcover or stomp my feet, clap loud as 

applause until my hands hurt, my toe nerves tangled 
as I bluff-dance her back to her origins. Moving 

from flatlands to mountains will teach you this dance. 
Too bad, she sighs to her sweet tooth mere steps 

removed from mine, too bad she repeats to thorn-stemmed 
boundaries between us. Be careful what you don’t wish for 

she retreats into our shared bowl of black bear stories. 
You may never see me. We could have been friends.