Raconteur

A father tells his son a bedtime story:
a talking polar bear, a prince bespelled.

The boy thinks daddy is himself the bear,
a fur-warm voice that lisps through human language.

It’s no small feat to sound out human words
through jaws as thickly built as fortress walls,

jaws made to crush a writhing walrus’s neck
in one swift and unfractionated motion;

to fractionate a growl into a mince
of syllables with seal-fat-slickened tongue;

to let soft-footed syllables parade
the narrow path between huge yellow canines.

As yellow beard hairs prick his iceberg cheek,
he impiously prays this spell will never break.

Jenna Le  
 
If you have any thoughts about this poem, Jenny Le would be pleased to hear them