Robert Southwick Richmond

Arcturus: Marla and her teddy bear

ARCTURUS

        in Lynnhurst Cemetery, Knoxville, Tennessee

 

Your grave, 11 year old Marla, with the icon

of your teddy bear – Tubby – your shawabti,

bear-guard, Arcturus. Around you stones for your parents,

your brother and sister, birth dates, Stonehenge,

moon trackers buried alive in Aubrey holes.

And that icon, that bear-guard

may be all you get, may bear’s self be

that true judge, that figure in the round window,

for you, Marla, in your last pajamas,

padding around the Pole with the great she-bear.