Shayna Kowalczyk

we’re going to catch a big one

After Michael Rosen

there’s no way out of this one. it’s like
hunting bears:

obstinate red wellies squelching
down the only stamped out path

in the greedy marshes, even though
it’s already evening and you are (so very) tired,

even though, truthfully, despite the chanting,
you don’t want to stalk

the grizzly, to spear it and tear it apart
with your fists and wear its

ripped pelt over your head
as a hot, drenched trophy,

even though, even now,
you’re praying soundlessly

for a way of living the tragedies
that is something other than

the relentless: we cannot go over it or
under it or round it, I am so sorry

Shayna Kowalczyk is an Indian-Mauritian-Polish poet and writer from London. Her work has appeared in bath magg and Propel Magazine, and she is an alumna of the Roundhouse Poetry Collective 22/23. She is a Trustee at Apples and Snakes. 

Shayna wrote the following about ‘We’re going to catch a big one’:

Everything you read as a kid sticks with you. Those books are your first frameworks for making sense of things and I held 'We're Going on a Bear Hunt' fast in my solemn little hands.