“This is a difficult part of the job, but when it comes to injuries to humans
as a result of a predator attack, human health and safety is our top priority.”
—Adrian Archuleta, Area Wildlife Manager for Colorado Parks & Wildlife

At 1 AM, hunger intervenes in the idyllic.
Frantic shuffle of hooves. A body opened
and partly gone. Bleats becoming blood.

I try to bear two ideas—wrapping myself
in the image of one while cradling the other.
But here these myths of childhood meet,

and, ultimately, neither will survive.
Bear comes upon the slumbering herd like
a shadow rising between night and moon.

Without light, blood doesn’t shine its warmth,
and we can’t see the fleece torn by a need
to survive. The shepherd wakes to this,

his loss another’s bounty. When I am feeling
sheepish, I hear him cock the rifle and fire
at whatever consumes me. One of those

alarming sounds that also brings relief.
On nights when I am grizzly, famished,
I run, wounded, towards a threat and fit

his head in my mouth. A metaphor
can be dangerous. There are days I am
the sheep longing for the bear. Do to me

what you want, I think, what I’m too
afraid to try myself again. Other days
I am the bear, and all I want are berries.

Do you understand me? I’m trying to say
we are always becoming so many things.
I do not always feel like a man,

and I’ve never been the one I was taught
to be. O, sheepish father. O, mama bear.
I am your little animal. I see his gentle face

in each domesticated ungulate, smile
at his ornery shenanigans. I look for her
in this wilderness, afraid of what might

become of our chance encounter, an end
to this lengthening absence. The rangers
followed the trail of blood, the abandoned

rifle, and two sheep devoured by a shadow
to the shepherd, who lives, cavernous
wounds where the bear cradled his head

in her maw. When they find her, they finish
what the shepherd started—priorities followed
to a certain end. This is not a metaphor.

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