We walked the Topeka zoo
yesterday and looked at
all the animals being held
against their will.

The angry zookeeper
told us about the bear
that got its head stuck
in a peanut-butter jar.

“It’s not a laughing matter.”,
he said.

The children laughed anyway.

“This bear would’ve died,”,
he said. “if we wouldn’t have
come along and taken him out
of the wild, removing the
peanut-butter jar, and nursing
him back from starvation.”

The bear was asleep in a thin tree
above our heads.
He’d climbed up there to be closer
to the warm sun,
my youngest son advised.

I wondered if he hadn’t climbed
up into that tree to sleep farther
away from the din of his jailer’s
voice as he shouted to the herds of us
who’d paid our six bucks to stand in
the cold and listen to his angry
voice tell us about peanut-butter jars
removed from the heads of bears and
how that’s what it takes to save lives
around here.

No one asked the zookeeper
or the bear if either one
of them still liked peanut
butter eaten straight from
the jar.

No one asked if either one
of them ever missed their
mothers.

We just watched the bear
sleep in the crook of the
highest branch of that
thin, leafless tree.

His head lulled into the
crook of his elbow and his
*** dangled in the chilly
air.

I suppose he was dreaming
of escape.
Maybe he pondered, dreamily,
what that zookeeper tasted like.

Perhaps he dreamed of peanut-butter
eaten straight from the jar,
knowing his head wouldn’t get stuck
anymore.

But, I bet he was dreaming
of his mother.


*

-JBClaywell

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