Sea Bear by Karen Dennison

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.