Fluorescence glazed the prostrate 

bearskin, lukewarm beneath my palms 

as my father urged me to pet harder, 

pet like I meant it. 

The Mall of America still glows 

like a synthetic ice palace 

still smells like the deep end 

of a swimming pool 

as it did when my family 

was yanked upstream the wheeze

of closing time,

security guards meeting 

my father’s bugged-out eyes. 

He’d gambled away our vacation money

but the mall was free to enter—did he mean 

to seek out the most luxurious thing 

we could touch? Sprinting the wide halls,

his drill sergeant bark a threat for us to keep up. 

I remember the shopkeeper’s kindness,  

assuring me the bear could not awaken, 

that the muzzle’s proscenium of fang 

would not lurch to pearly life. 

Years after my father’s overdose, 

I came to the same understanding 

as I did when, as the shopkeeper 

locked the clattering gate, I stole

one more glance at the bear’s umber sheen

and saw her color as my hair’s own.

There had been something alive

behind those matte-black eyes 

that belonged to me now, 

brain-tanned and flayed.