A Bear on the Docks

The sun is edging over the horizon;
I planned it this way, to be unnaturally
on the dock just as the sun keeled
over the edge of the world, splashing
its light over the Harborton fishing village.

He is simply there, and it would be odd
if he weren’t, and his day is already half
over—the bear who stands on the dock with me.
His eyes, wrinkled chasms, each trapping
a storm, each a story untold. His hands
are thick and scarred, slowly chewed.

He smells like lamp oil and cigarettes,
and it seems this way; that no matter
which way the wind blows, I can smell him,

and the wind does blow, even my pant-legs
seem to billow in it, though his clothes
are motionless, immovably-salt-crusted;
the bear

has nothing to say to me. He too
looks out to the horizon,
perhaps our only similarity.

I am thinking of coffee and pancakes
as he pulls a small fish from his pocket,
digs into it with his paws,
turns it inside out and eats it raw,
tossing the carcass over the dock
with no more thought about the look of it
than is given to the seagulls sleeping
on the mooring posts. This man, the bear,
he is the man I wish I were on Saturdays.