The Heavy Bear Who Goes With Me
Delmore Schwartz

"the withness of the body"

The heavy bear who goes with me,

A manifold honey to smear his face,

Clumsy and lumbering here and there,

The central ton of every place,

The hungry beating brutish one

In love with candy, anger, and sleep,

Crazy factotum, dishevelling all,

Climbs the building, kicks the football,

Boxes his brother in the hate-ridden city.

Breathing at my side, that heavy animal,

That heavy bear who sleeps with me,

Howls in his sleep for a world of sugar,

A sweetness intimate as the water's clasp,

Howls in his sleep because the tight-rope

Trembles and shows the darkness beneath.

—The strutting show-off is terrified,

Dressed on his dress-suit, bulging his pants,

Trembles to think that his quivering meat

Must finally wince to nothing at all.

That inescapable animal walks with me,

Has followed me since the black womb held,

Moves where I move, distorting my gesture,

A caricature, a swollen shadow,

A stupid clown of the spirit's motive,

Perplexes and affronts with his own darkness,

The secret life of belly and bone,

Opaque, too near, my private, yet unknown,

Stretches to embrace the very dear

With whom I would walk without him near,

Touches her grossly, although a word

Would bare my heart and make me clear,

Stumbles, flounders, and strives to be fed

Dragging me with him in his mouthing care,

Amid the hundred million of his kind,
The scrimmage of the appetite everywhere.