by Emma Younger
I am the epitome of loving you,
here at the Oregon Zoo.
I look at you, Nora, and my heart has heart
eyes, heart eyes crying. Are you as lonely
as I am? I personify you so hard
that I pass through the plexiglass to sit next to you
and your restless bones. Grey and skinny,
you were never of the arctic. A polar bear
of Portland, you are pacing in circles.
Head hanging low-low as you wobble
from corner to corner.
We can hear the highway.
I want to put my hands in your matted fur.
I knew you when I was a child
field-tripping here.
You recognize me, don't you?
My intense gaze matches yours.
And you still live here, in this cramped
exhibit here in Portland,
and I took myself all the way to Chicago,
living in a studio the size of your exhibit,
but with a doorknob I can turn.
A studio apartment still small enough
to hold me and my madness hostage
for weeks on end. Where I lost my mind,
like you. A thousand miles away.
You see my trash bags that I couldn’t bear
to take to the garbage.
The cat litter and litter dust all over the floor.
The air conditioner, broken but still running.
The fridge full of rotten stonefruit.
Debris from my very human life.
I see your chest heaving breath.
Your watery eyes, heavy in your head,
your barely touched breakfast.
I rest my hand between your ears
and you pause your pacing.
We stand in the rain, swaying.
I tell you about what I’ve left behind,
you tell me what you’re still looking for.
Emma Younger is pursuing an MFA in poetry at Randolph College. They live with their wife & small menagerie of animals in Chicago, IL.