{"id":3918,"date":"2017-10-10T19:12:18","date_gmt":"2017-10-11T00:12:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/archive.onesentencepoems.com\/?p=3918"},"modified":"2017-10-02T19:16:44","modified_gmt":"2017-10-03T00:16:44","slug":"michele-stepto-the-unfinished-poem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.onesentencepoems.com\/?p=3918","title":{"rendered":"Michele Stepto &#8220;The Unfinished Poem&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1>Michele Stepto<\/h1>\n<h2><span style=\"color: #800000;\">The Unfinished Poem\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n<p>It is not like seeing a bear loping across your path<br \/>\nahead of you on the road<br \/>\nin the evening light<\/p>\n<p>its fur rippling over its muscles and blacker than the dark<br \/>\ncoming on, as black as licorice<br \/>\nor anthracite<\/p>\n<p>as it finds its opening into the twilit woods and you idly<br \/>\nwonder what errand this moderate<br \/>\nhurry might<\/p>\n<p>serve and whether this particular bear, however black<br \/>\nhe might seem, could possibly be<br \/>\nthe Norwegian White<\/p>\n<p>Bear King ambling the woods toward the castle<br \/>\nand the princess waiting there, waiting<br \/>\nso they write<\/p>\n<p>to marry a bear and change him back into a man<br \/>\nafter sleeping with him (no questions asked<br \/>\nand never catching sight<\/p>\n<p>of his true shape) for three or four nights (just feeling his fur<br \/>\nin the dark, silky and soft and<br \/>\nneither black nor white)<\/p>\n<p>or else that Penobscot boy who got lost in the woods<br \/>\nand was taken in by a family of bears who<br \/>\nloved him despite<\/p>\n<p>his being human, though he wasn&#8217;t that for long, not<br \/>\nafter the bear hair sprouted and grew and<br \/>\ncovered him up right<\/p>\n<p>down to his plantigrade feet, so that one morning when he caught<br \/>\na salmon between his teeth and ate it<br \/>\nraw and at first bite<\/p>\n<p>began to bark with joy, just like a bear, his new<br \/>\nmama looked on with pride<br \/>\nat the sight<\/p>\n<p>of this child of hers with his silky hair and his funny snout<br \/>\nand his sharp, sharp eyes<br \/>\nnot quite<\/p>\n<p>a bear yet, but coming along nicely, she thought.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><strong>Michele Stepto<\/strong><\/span><em>&#8216;s work has appeared online at<\/em> Verse-Virtual, What Rough Beast<em> (at Indolent Books), <\/em>NatureWriting<em>, <\/em>Mirror Dance Fantasy<em> and <\/em>Lacuna Journal<em>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Michele Stepto The Unfinished Poem\u00a0 It is not like seeing a bear loping across your path ahead of you on the road in the evening light its fur rippling over its muscles and blacker than the dark coming on, as black as licorice or anthracite as it finds its opening into the twilit woods and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"aside","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}},"_wpscppro_dont_share_socialmedia":false,"_wpscppro_custom_social_share_image":0},"categories":[9],"tags":[401],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.5 - 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