Bear Story by Jesse Millner

Started planning a trip this morning, first by train, then by plane to a western park with plenty of space like Glacier National Park, and also with plenty of bears and maybe, just maybe, a big one would eat me. In that way the cells of my very body would become

bear in that way stomach acids reduce flesh, bone, and blood, into an intimate stew of the former body. Is it too much to wish for that I would have some inkling of life beyond my bloody consumption? Too much to ask for, that it would be like a sky burial, except instead of flying, I’d be part of a running creature as it flew across green meadows and into those dark forests where the wet nights are a ticking, dripping mystery?

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Jesse Millner’s poems and prose have appeared in The Florida Review, Pithead Chapel, The Best American Poetry 2013, Best Small Fictions 2020, and other literary magazines. His latest poetry book, Memory’s Blue Sedan, was released in March 2020 by Hysterical Books of Tallahassee, Florida. Twitter: @JesseMillner