The Chainsaw Bears

The chainsaw bears want nothing
but to be bought today.

They are tired of being touched
by travelers who don’t want them,

hands that linger on their paws,
a tan arm canvassed across

their bare wooden shoulders.
It’s unfair they can’t choose

their homes – cabins in the cleared
wood, the living rooms of A-frames

where girls in laurel
green skirts would clean

their dusty shoulders, touch
up the inky knobs of paint

on their dry noses. But for now
they are okay with settling –

like silt kicked up in a glass
pool or tiny houses that moan

in the mornings under
their compromise and weight.