On Reading Galway Kinnell's The Bear
by Kenneth Wanamaker

    yesterday I left my fingers
    in a voting booth, arms and lips
    at the cinema, my groin
    on a nine-seven-six line.

    now I pull together the wandering parts and crawl
    into this carcass of morning
    I drink espresso and wrestle
    with the lump of sputum
    in my throat.

    one night a bear snagged my meal sack:
    seam-sealed bags of granola
    and powdered milk. He left his claws
    in packets of onion soup.

    He didn't crawl into my tent.






Copyright © 2025 by Red River Review. First Rights Reserved. All other rights revert to the authors.
No work may be reproduced or republished without the express written consent of the author.