The mind goes, eventually,

where it needs to go.  As does the body.

Not so with the heart.

The heart has nothing for need.  It sits in a little hut, and all the

      roads

are well-worn, all the wagons breaking.

Tonight’s breakthrough is I try to lull myself

by imagining that I have been badly burned.

In the drawings I can’t draw there is a new window

open on the left side of my neck.  The lulling is for this,

for shutting it.

Today I walked the road from end to end.

If you want to know, yes, I looked

for bears. My whole adult life I’ve looked.

Before sex, there was not a bear. And

so on. While I walked, planes came through

the valley, two together, antique, I think.

My thoughts went to air show.

Crop duster. Forest fire. First flight.

I don’t know where you are.

So now I’ll say I hated and loved the time

the young barista gave you your receipt

with her number on the back. I was

right there, like another customer,

a book bag. Just this morning,

the man up the road told me

a story: one evening he sat alone

in the yard with his book and sensed

in the quiet a presence—what he took

to be his wife sneaking up. He waited.

Finally he turned to see sleeping on the grass

behind his chair a large bear. I could

have wept. Tonight the roar coming on

is one plane, nothing in chase or warning

or relief, nothing but the late sun

and everything’s invitation to face it.