Nostrovia! Press
  • Home
    • Submit
    • Bartenders
    • How do we distribute?
  • Poetry Contest
    • 2020 Winners
  • Chapbooks
    • Full Catalog >
      • 2018 Chapbooks
      • 2017 Chapbooks >
        • Loathe/Love/Lathe by Aeon Ginsberg
        • our own soft by Katie Clark
        • every time i park my car I feel like i'm doing something wrong by Joseph Parker Okay
      • 2016 Chapbooks >
        • I Was Talking About Love—You Are Talking About Geography by Bob Sykora
        • Make a Fist & Tongue the Knuckles by Emily O'Neill
        • I Can Remember the Meaning of Every Tarot Card But I Can’t Remember What I Texted You Last Night by Elle Nash
      • 2015 Chapbooks >
        • Moon Facts by Bob Schofield
        • Juliet II by Sarah Xerta
        • Bird Lizard Horse by August Smith
  • F/A/L/D
    • Current Issue
    • Archives >
      • Issue #014
      • Issue #013
      • Issue #012
      • Issue #011
      • Issue #010
      • Issue #009
      • Issue #008
      • Issue #007
      • Issue #006
      • Issue #005
      • Issue #004
      • Issue #003
      • Issue #002
      • Issue #001
  • Traveling Bookstore
  • ExtraExtra!
    • [N!] Tavern >
      • N! News
      • Travelogue
      • Submission Calls
      • Featured Creatives
    • [N!] Social >
      • Facebook
      • Twitter
      • Tumblr
      • Youtube
    • Gatherings
    • Interviews >
      • 2017 >
        • Interview w/ Carlie Sherry
        • Interview w/ Linette Reeman
        • Int w/ N! (Entropy: Small Press Database)
      • 2016 >
        • Int w/ N! (Drunk In A Midnight Choir)
        • "To Life & Art w/ Nostrovia!"
        • Interview w/ Marshall Harris
        • Interview w/ Jeffrey Cyphers Wright
        • Interview w/ Teré Fowler-Chapman
      • Beach Sloth Series >
        • Interview w/ Blare Coughlin
        • Interview w/ Alexandra Naughton
        • Interview w/ Jack Serge
      • 2014 >
        • Interview w/ Ben Austin
        • Interview w/ Felino A. Soriano
        • Interview w/ Eleanor Bennett
        • Interview w/ Steven Roggenbuck
        • Interview w/ Zarina Zabrisky & Simon Rogghe
      • 2013 >
        • Interview w/ Amanda Silberling
    • Homies & Links
  • Home
    • Submit
    • Bartenders
    • How do we distribute?
  • Poetry Contest
    • 2020 Winners
  • Chapbooks
    • Full Catalog >
      • 2018 Chapbooks
      • 2017 Chapbooks >
        • Loathe/Love/Lathe by Aeon Ginsberg
        • our own soft by Katie Clark
        • every time i park my car I feel like i'm doing something wrong by Joseph Parker Okay
      • 2016 Chapbooks >
        • I Was Talking About Love—You Are Talking About Geography by Bob Sykora
        • Make a Fist & Tongue the Knuckles by Emily O'Neill
        • I Can Remember the Meaning of Every Tarot Card But I Can’t Remember What I Texted You Last Night by Elle Nash
      • 2015 Chapbooks >
        • Moon Facts by Bob Schofield
        • Juliet II by Sarah Xerta
        • Bird Lizard Horse by August Smith
  • F/A/L/D
    • Current Issue
    • Archives >
      • Issue #014
      • Issue #013
      • Issue #012
      • Issue #011
      • Issue #010
      • Issue #009
      • Issue #008
      • Issue #007
      • Issue #006
      • Issue #005
      • Issue #004
      • Issue #003
      • Issue #002
      • Issue #001
  • Traveling Bookstore
  • ExtraExtra!
    • [N!] Tavern >
      • N! News
      • Travelogue
      • Submission Calls
      • Featured Creatives
    • [N!] Social >
      • Facebook
      • Twitter
      • Tumblr
      • Youtube
    • Gatherings
    • Interviews >
      • 2017 >
        • Interview w/ Carlie Sherry
        • Interview w/ Linette Reeman
        • Int w/ N! (Entropy: Small Press Database)
      • 2016 >
        • Int w/ N! (Drunk In A Midnight Choir)
        • "To Life & Art w/ Nostrovia!"
        • Interview w/ Marshall Harris
        • Interview w/ Jeffrey Cyphers Wright
        • Interview w/ Teré Fowler-Chapman
      • Beach Sloth Series >
        • Interview w/ Blare Coughlin
        • Interview w/ Alexandra Naughton
        • Interview w/ Jack Serge
      • 2014 >
        • Interview w/ Ben Austin
        • Interview w/ Felino A. Soriano
        • Interview w/ Eleanor Bennett
        • Interview w/ Steven Roggenbuck
        • Interview w/ Zarina Zabrisky & Simon Rogghe
      • 2013 >
        • Interview w/ Amanda Silberling
    • Homies & Links
Nostrovia! Press
​Paragraph section header text

T. Stores

Bears

I.
The black cat balanced on the porch rail alerts
to the rattling brook and stares greenmoon-

eyed into me, pausing coffee--LOOK!—then
drags my gaze pricked-ear- directed to the shore where

a bear trundles through blue Siberian
irises into our backyard, below my children’s window, black

back rippling summer muscle within, summer
sun surface, tawny muzzle tipped a twitching black

toward the garbage, the compost, the garden,
me and the black cat on the porch, exposed. The black

cat expands to a black bristle, gleaming, as the black
bear lopes slow on long arms—fore-legs really—toward

me and my coffee, perfect for hugging, wrapping around
the neck, the torso, that snout in my ear, over my shoulder, another

in the dozen of bears inside with children and love, but for those claws
that rake the compost heap, gouge the plastic tubs of garbage, shred the melons

just ripening in the garden below. But for the claws. But for the claws.

II.

The big boys at church called my father Bear.
At eleven I thought the name came from his huge hugs,

safe and warm in public, cheek to his starched white Sunday shirt,
satiny tie, my arms inside his Sunday suit jacket not reaching

all the way around his waist, scented with leather belt, the belt
a reminder of the danger of his love, the snake hissing through the loops

before beatings, but in public he would wrap those long fore-legs
around and squeeze with a low growl of something I thought was love. But

at twelve I sprouted small melons, sipped first coffee, and saw
through greenmoon eyes his stare. His hate. His love. I bled

and the bear-hugs simply ceased. Ceased. Ceased. He saw me. Girl sees Bear.

III.
Bear inventory:
three sets of twins for our twins:
one snowy pair, blue-nosed for boy, pink-nosed for girl, sitting dumb, short arms and stupid
stares open wide, mall-fashioned at Build-a- Bear, some special mystery stuffed inside;
another gendered pair, Blueberry Bear and Raspberry Bear with thin long limbs, good for
wrapping around the neck, from my mother, not my father, unknown
to our own twin cubs;
a third pair in white, polar bears, walking on four legs of even length, unsuited
to hugs, busy on their way, perhaps, to the long hibernation.
Alone, on high shelf, my own bear, hand-sewn by someone who simply loved, loved simply,
worn thin and sad, witness witness witness to my childhood in those greenmoon eyes.

IV.
How do you explain bear to child?
Dangerous. A wild thing. Run away inside. Those bears
are not our bears
, melon-round and snow-soft, coffee-eyed, twins
dumb in white fluff hibernation.
Hugs have claws. Hugs can bleed.
Bears are black with mystery inside.
Bears cannot love, cannot love, cannot love.

V.
Back on the back-porch, I do not run. The black cat does not run. I consider
garbage, compost, the mystery and hibernation of love. I remember
bear-hugs.

Hello Bear.
He hears me, sees me and stops
for me. I brave love for that wild
moment, reach out my long arms,
simply waiting.

He might be considering me, the garbage,
the weight of claws and the long black hibernation
of love. He might love. He might love. He might
simply lumber away.



originally published in Naugatuck River Review (Winter 2015). Honorable Mention, Narrative Poetry Contest

Dig our chapbook contest:

nostrovia chapbooks