Bear
A poem by Paula J. Lambert

Bear

Just past midnight, a bear 
and a wolverine thrashed

through the bushes outside 
our living room window.

Or maybe that god-awful
sound was just a raccoon

falling off the roof. No bears 
in this part of Ohio. No

wolverines. But in the news
this morning: flamingoes

blown in from Hurricane
Idalia. I go outside, look for

fur, blood, evidence of a fight.
I was so sure something died

last night. I wondered what
flamingos might sound like,

riding a storm, landing in
a place they don’t recognize

or want any part of. Might it be
anything like a bear fight, or

a raccoon tumbling through
gravity, pissed? I wonder

if the birds thrashed like that,
scream-hissing so horrifically

at what brought them here,
at how they’d landed, how

they’d get back to where they
were, to what it was like, before.

About the Author:

Paula J. Lambert has published several collections of poetry including As If This Did Not Happen Every Day (Sheila-Na-Gig 2024) and Uncertainty (The Only Hope We Have) (Bottlecap 2023). Also a visual artist, small-press publisher, and literary translator, her work has been recognized by PEN America and supported by the Ohio Arts Council, Greater Columbus Arts Council, and Virginia Center for Creative Arts. She lives in Columbus, Ohio, with her husband Michael Perkins, a philosopher and technologist. More at www.paulajlambert.com.

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