The Woman who Married a Bear

“Alliances between animals and humans are common in many tribes’ myths. They appear to be most popular in the North Pacific Coast tribes, where a whale take a human wife, and among the Plains Indians whose legends often feature a buffalo or bear.” --- Richard Erdoes and Alfonso Ortiz from
                                                      American Indian Myths and Legends

She had a lover whose eyes were black hooks,
luring her heart into the marsh of his body—
then dragging her out like a stained prize,
a captive of his scars, his mother’s blood.

She wintered on berries and thin plums,
drank a broth of maples and spruce,
strung nets to snare the mice and snakes,
while her lover groaned and slept.

She had a lover whose fingers spun sticky webs,
who wove her nerves around his throat like pearls—
a necklace of fat spiders and grubs,
moth wings fluttering against his skin.

Mornings she melted anise and cream
in a skillet over low flames.
She gutted pale fish and split the flesh
dangling from the bones like husks of fruit.
Her lover rubbed against the current of her hips,
howled in gratitude and ate.

She had a lover whose voice pulled at the fragile
cords coiled along her spine like a harp.
Whose dreaming hands arranged the black
veil of her hair until it shimmered with music,
each strand a tiny river of sound
combed between his claws.

She scraped the rinds of green melon,
crushed pine needles and veined leaves,
lit a fire to simmer the reeds and stems of summer grass—
then braided a rug of feathers and straw
for her lover to rest upon while he smoked.

She had a lover who spooned her body at night,
who drank from the full cups of her breasts,
who hungered for her shoulders, her mouth, her belly—
who fed on the pounding in her chest.