Little Bear

One of my mother’s names

was Ursula. Mary Ursula.

Consider that open vessel,

that curved vase of a vowel

in her books, on her library card.

Think too of the fat cylinder

of her orange fountain pen,

its wide-ended, gold nib

that signed her name.

M.U. Cullen Mary Ursula.

The bowl of that U could

hold us in its broad sides.

My mother said It means

a small female bear.

Also a British Christian saint

who led her handmaidens

her eleven thousand virgins

to their beheading.

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