The Bear Hole

The damn bear had broken into the laboratory

And she sat there, astonished

In a world entirely alien to everything she ever knew

All the smells, the iodine

The alcohol, methylene blue

Creatures dissected in bottles, impossible objects

Microscopes, PGR tubes

And the bear, she’s sitting there, on the linoleum floor

Unimaginable whiteness everywhere

Fluorescent lights above

Tables and workstations

Not one green thing

Not one brown thing

And the bear, she sat back

On her haunches

And began to sing in an ancient way

Absolutely familiar to bears

She sat and she sang

For fifteen minutes

And then, she turned around

And went right back through the hole

She’d torn in the laboratory wall, with primordial fierceness

Just like that