Grizzly Man

American busker, 23, pink stormwracked
hair, eyes of an Iberian
wolf. She wears combat boots torn open
at the toes, and there's little reddish razor marks
on her wrists and thighs
and the right side
of her bottom lip is pierced with a silver ring
with little balls on the ends. Tattoos
of cherries and skulls spread across her chest
and the words, "Not all those
who wander are lost." She's been to London, Paris, Rome,
all over the Eastern Bloc.
She travels with her guitar
and lives in an old rusty green VW van with advertising
on the side that says in German, in red Gothic
lettering:  "Pork Knuckles."

We've been going out
only a couple weeks and we are drinking Tempranillo
in the back room of a little kneipe on Falkensteinstraße.
It is warm in here and very dark with only two orange candles on the walls.
We've taken our winter coats off
and they slump sadly on the wooden rack
and the little black and white TV on the three-legged table in the corner
is playing the Werner Herzog
documentary where the blond guy in the Dutchboy hairdo gets eaten
by a grizzly bear.
"I don't know why people think they can cohabit
with wild animals and nothing's
ever gonna happen," I say. "If the animal is wild chances
are one day you'll get it.
You just have to wait.
It's dumb
arrogance to think otherwise." She looks at me,
nods and says
nothing.





M.P. Powers is an American ex-pat living in Berlin, Germany. His poetry has appeared in The New York Quarterly, Menacing Hedge, The Foundling Review, Rosebud, Existere, Stone Highway Review and many other fine places. More info here: http://www.nyqpoets.net/poet/mppowers