so much joy it hurts

Jun. 7, 2012 at 12:49am with 16 notes View comments

Reblogged from sladegibbs

whether or not to leave the house to bees

The catching of honeycomb followed by
an inward curl of the hand
like you could swell a thousand

pairs of insect wings with exhale
alone, the disruption of flight
patterns. Better to skin the underside

of your arm as to hide the aftermath.
This is not a hurricane but the motion
we must make is practically the same,

change paths on everyone unsuspecting.
Go back out to sea and gather
maybe an army of honeybees perchance

a surging to soak our bones.
Like you could swell to death.
Do we dwell on the outskirts of gardens

hung low, devising escape paths in sand
at low tide? Loosed like a millow arrows
or slower like an unclenching of a fist

knuckled deep into the mattress? Once
he rolls off, the hurt of blooming digits
will only draw him closer into her crook.

We could just disappear, end up inside
a magician’s hat, turn up in the throat
of a mountain no one thought yet to name.

We could do these things as reason
to enhance what years remain. The bees they
have it under control, there will be pollen

plenty enough to nest an entire Africa of them.
The kind that kill small dogs for fun
and that is why we should instead

make for a very different coastline or,
by virtue of wind, just swell a thousand
miles to the west or north or better yet bury

ourselves in the sand, dunk our heads
underneath the surface of the nearest water
to escape the possibility of stinging.