Sunday Afternoon as Oil Pours into the Gulf
A very large man
riding a large tractor mower,
attached bin so that grass clippings
won’t have to be raked,
across his small suburban lawn
while his young son plays happily
driving his toy electric
Hummer SUV
up and down the driveway
while I watch, my large ass
planted in chair in an
air-conditioned house,
scanning the internet
for photos of the horror,
feeling sick
as I view them.
Four-Word Lines
May Swenson
Your eyes are just
like bees, and I
feel like a flower.
Their brown power makes
a breeze go over
my skin. When your
lashes ride down and
rise like brown bees’
legs, your prolonged gaze
makes my eyes gauze.
I wish we were
in some shade and
no swarm of other
eyes to know that
I’m a flower breathing
bare, laid open to
your bees’ warm stare.
I’d let you wade
in me and seize
with your eager brown
bees’ power a sweet
glistening at my core.
from New and Selected Things Taking Place
Cean Dubh Deelish
Sir Samuel Ferguson
Put your head, darling, darling, darling,
Your darling black head my heart above;
Oh, mouth of honey, with the thyme for fragrance,
Who, with heart in breast, could deny you love?
from “The Fly”
Galway Kinnell
The bee is the fleur-de-lys in the flesh.
She has a tuft of the sun on her back.
She brings sexual love to the narcissus flower.
She sings of fulfillment only
and stings and dies, and
everything she ever touches
is opening, opening.
This Frenzy 