A Bear Doing Cha-Cha
Feb 17 2011


I can’t remember
if it’s the 800 lb gorilla
or the elephant in the room.
In a single sentence
my essential truth.
How conveniently I forget.
How my power of denial
has not lessened
with age.

I will slip past the pachyderm
meticulously unobservant.
Turning sideways
sucking in my chest,
brushing against its wrinkled grey skin.
Which is surprisingly soft, and giving.
And tactfully never ask
how this unlikely mammoth
in the beginning
managed to squeeze itself in.

And why 800 lbs
the limit?
The suspect round number
the timid excess?
Go all the way, I say
1000 at least,
a bestiary of unnatural feats.
Great ape to King Kong,
a blue whale, beached.
Fish-out-of-water
dancing bears, doing cha-cha
a star-crossed frog,
that longs for a Princess to kiss.

Or some other mythical beast,
unicorn, gryphon, sphinx.
With its enigmatic smile,
like the Cheshire cat, Alice’s rabbit.
Or the blind man’s camel
that comes out front-to-back.

As I suddenly vanish
down the open manhole
I never noticed,
my gaze fixed, unwavering.
The contingent bliss
of denial.