J. P. Dancing Bear: Three Poems
Mary in the City | Colossus | Last Meal

Mary in the City

In a city where poets
name the skeletons,
she gets used to the thinness.

Out of alcoves and shadows,
ghosts stare their yellow moons
hard like tombstones in her faith.
She keeps the fragments of the day
in tight muscles,
fights a nervous urge
to clean this curbed reality
of its discards.

She keeps a finger on the mace
in her pocket, tense-ready
in the jungle, knowing
what she knows.

In this city they will mug you
for the light you carry.

Colossus

Beside the spread out wreckage of a giant,
I assemble small words in a prayer
for the bent-back believers
whose rope-burned hands faithfully labored
to hoist the sun god's body to the sky,
the whipcrack work songs and the heavy
breaths of horses shouldering
a green shadow meant to last forever.

Last Meal

Inside the coffee shop before she moves to hell,
a woman dines on caffeine with milk and prozac.
Clouds shock their roots to the ground
and the sky rumbles its belly of rain.

A woman dines on caffeine with milk and prozac,
she is stuck on the angles of the outside walk
and the sky rumbles its belly of rain.
The day's news flaps against the pane.

She is stuck on the angles of the outside walk.
A skinny mongrel pads the street for food.
The day's news flaps against the pane—
a broken-winged harbinger.

A skinny mongrel pads the street for food,
sniffing for the bones of lunch hour leftovers.
A broken-winged harbinger
pushes its front-page image into the woman's eye.

Sniffing out the bones of lunch hour leftovers,
the dog finds another meal before his death,
pushes its front-page image into the woman's eye
she thinks this may be her last sip.

The dog finds another meal before his death.
Clouds shock their roots to the ground.
she thinks this may be her last sip
inside the coffee shop before she moves to hell.

Poet's Biography:

J. P. Dancing Bear is editor-in-chief of Disquieting Muses, the host of "Out of Our Minds" a weekly poetry program on public radio station KKUP, and the owner of Dream Horse Press. Bear's poems have been published in hundreds of journals including New York Quarterly, Clackamas Literary Review, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, and Clay Palm Review. For more information, visit his website.