I was surprised the airline allowed us to bring
two foxes, a bear, and a kitten home from Paris.
We had to find cardboard boxes in the airport,
which was no problem, the floors were piled high.
The foxes, together, immediately curled and slept,
and the kitten in her separate box batted our hands
until the flight attendant insisted we close the lid.
The bear was expected to travel like a cello
or upright bass, stashed in the back
near the restrooms in his box, a flimsy coffin.
A bear the size of an average man, his paws
hung at his sides in apparent submission
while, in tears, we taped the box shut,
having poked copious holes for air with a pen.
The conditions were obviously inadequate,
and this was a bear we felt confident could sit
through a flight. A bear the color of damp sidewalk,
the color of sadness, I thought, the color of a path
that has no hope of reaching a destination
beyond itself, no agency at all,
though the bear had been removed from a zoo
and promised, in a language we had to assume
he didn’t understand, a better life elsewhere.
His eyes darted with terror of being closed in,
and his shoulders froze in a tension we shared,
though of course ours didn’t compare. Amazingly,
the flight was smooth and we landed
in New Jersey on time. The foxes and the kitten
appeared no worse for the wear, indeed
seemed energized. The bear, on the other hand,
when we tore the tape from his box,
slumped forward, massive near-dead weight
that almost knocked us down, though we held him up
and kept holding as he gulped
the American air drifting in from the tarmac
and died raggedly, like a person does, in our arms.
