How Many Bees Are There in a Day? by Susan Terris






In the air, a tinge of honey and buzz of morning,
cherry, pear, redbud skirling the rim of her glance

as she stepped from the arboretum and shook her arms
until leaves began to fall away from her body.

Lighter, stronger, less green, she inhaled sky,
its blue defaced only by dust motes, and then earth,

a place of dazzle without pain: the pond water
unclouded to match the sky, the fish uncounted.

She was naked now and pliable, dropping to knees
then to belly in spears of fat-bladed grass.

The sun ardent on her back, she stretched
and rolled—Jill without her pail—downhill

toward the storied hives,

an innocent, not yet alert to swarm and fury
or to the sure promise of sting and sting and sting.

 


Susan Terris' new book FIRE IS FAVORABLE TO THE DREAMER will be published in 2003 by Arctos Press.  In 2004, Gary Metras at Adastra Press will publish a letterpress edition of her chapbook Poetic License and Marsh Hawk Press will publish her book An Unmeasured Life.  Click here to read more about Susan Terris.

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