The Other One is Cassiopeia

     There’s a bear at the back of my throat,
camouflaged—
                   but you can hear it;

            and if you look closely,
maybe even catch the glint
     of a bottomless 
            mortality.

Sometimes
            it nosedives,
     following the current down
to maul my guts
            with laughter—
tears running into estuaries. They

            say salmon
     swim upstream each year
            —that it’s innate—
returning to an open womb despite
     the dementia,

but I don’t believe in 
            fate’s maw
and only know four constellations
     or see two 
            with any regularity.

© Simon Turner