by Brendan Constantine
Today I heard a forest ranger say,
Don’t interfere with the bears
or they’ll fine you lots of money.
For all the things an angry bear
might do to me – open my blood,
swallow my face, crush me
like a bag of ice – I never dreamed
it would ask for money. A thousand
dollars, the ranger said. What
in the world, what on the green
and huddled earth could a bear
possibly buy? And who would dare
work the register? The whole thing
sounds like a scam. Like that summer
when I was five and my aunt
touched my belly and said, This
is where God lives.
If that’s true, I thought, he’s so dead.
Brendan Constantine is a poet based in Los Angeles. His fifth collection The Opposites Game is due out from Red Hen Press in 2026. He currently teaches at the WIndward School and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
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