GLOBAL WARMING: THE FIRST NIGHT

our new heat coil snaked
gutters melting ice damns,
I push a polar bear in Homicide's
rooftop swing where Robin
Williams, cast as a wimp widower,
once sat mourning his defiant wife
who, chin jut out, refused to give
the gunman her gold locket.

The cub is part of our family now.

Thank god her growth is stunted
for good. (At two she had language,
by three she'd lost her human tongue.)
The cub likes to cuddle. We nuzzle.
Still, I must approach from behind,
take her in a half-nelson. I mime
my friend with her autistic triplets.
Of course, we had our bear spayed.