Bear

​I guess the problem with the bear was he wouldn’t die.
It started Tuesday of last week. We brought him to the town square,
rope tied tight around his neck. It was there, in the center
of it all, children watching, bedraggled as they’d all become,
we were to do it, anoint him with our sins, cut him from this life.
It was there he came to die. It was, to say the least, depressing.
The first problem was he was beautiful. Not in a conventional way,
you wouldn’t say, that bear is so beautiful, he rose in none of us
an urge, being that he was, after all, a bear. Maybe the word <