I stare into your eyes, pits that tunnel
the past, burrow myths and rise up, up
to the stars, where Ursa dances in glacial night.
I think of you lumbering softly through
dreamlike drifts, your space-black snout
sniffing out a distant seal.
Could I crawl into your den in a bank of snow,
curl up in its chamber
and dream your dreams;
shoulder the weight
of your flipper-like paws,
each one as wide as your brow?
In the constellations you unfailingly turn
around the pole. Down on earth you set sail
on shrinking ice that glints like stars.
______________
Karen Dennison is author of two collections – The Paper House (Hedgehog Poetry Press,
2019) and Counting Rain (Indigo Dreams, 2012). Her pamphlet, Of Hearts, is published by Broken Sleep Books (2021). She is co-editor of Against the Grain Poetry Press.