Lit eZine Vol 10 | p-11 | POETRY | Grizzly Man

SHORT POEM

GRIZZLY MAN
Short Poem by Jean-Luc Fontaine

I watch as my father stumbles 
                          back into the living room, 
the small ember of his mouth 
     ready to blaze a, 
                              Who the fuck are you?, 
throughout our house, 

                     because he is convinced 
there’s a stranger 
                sitting in front of him. 

                            As a child, I trembled 
at the burble of his breath, 
            the pounding of his jack-
hammer feet against 
                                   our wooden floors, 

but now, I sit on 
                         his kelpy-smelling couch, 
vowing to take care of the man 
                                who I so desperately 
wanted to escape growing up. 

On the television in our living room, 
                     there’s a documentary on

about a man who decides to forgo 
                    the usual rigmarole of life 
to live among
                    the bears—
            those brown-furred locomotives. 

                       He stands by a riverbank, 
now deglazed by mousy rainfall, 
           and looks so confident and brash 
being close to his new,
                     dangerous family—so calm 

                               he might as well be 
a pile of rocks or a crossing guard 
                          trying to help the bears 
traverse the water safely. 

                   I know the ending, though. 
He will soon be mauled 

                       by a newly alpha bear, 
and just like the man 
         in the documentary, 
                         I’m trapped in the maw 
             of my trauma,
but no longer do I want to get out. 

I swallow back each outburst, 
                            like a volunteer cook 
at a homeless shelter 
             testing the meatloaf—
each forkful forcing me 
                         to become a little more 
kind and patient, capable 
                     of keeping anything down. 

I go over to my towering father 
              who is swaying in the doorway 
and say, It’s your son, dad, 
              and I pray, like I did as a child, 

                     that he doesn't decide 
to hollow out my insides 
                           in the belly of the night.