What Brings You Here?

Home is the mouth of a bear.
No one leaves home who is not
Large enough to bleed out there.

The things that are small find joy
In the bits of fruit and flesh
Left to cling to the bear’s teeth.

The things that were large are gone,
Down the throat, or dead, or fled
With their wounds back to the woods.

I would like to be a beast
So small I could live at home
My whole life, but I dream woods.