Carol Potter, “If Bees Eat”
Author: Poetry Editor
November 15, 2011
This week, three new poems by Carol Potter.
ZUCCHINI
napkin thrown down on the floor
an ending of sortsSaturday dinner on the table
walking out each dooryou in your socks out frontme in back
zucchini with the knife stuck in itwho said what to whom?it was
yours I saidthere’s the knife with the butter on it
me in the chair out backthe stars I stared up at
I keep thinking I ought to know their namesbeen looking
at them my whole lifeought to be able to discern
Big Dipperfrom little shield of Achillesfrom dog of the world
barking in the sky broken railingnapkin on the floor zucchini
in its pool of cold buttersmell of apples we’d piled
in the corner of the yardgreengnarlytart apples
nothing anyone could eat
you on the front step
me in the back
sweet stink of apple in the dark and the bees that eat them
IF BEES EAT
green applesfalling into the yardbees eating them
if you can say that bees eatgouges in the apples
4-5 bees in each gougethe saploosened
sweet all over the ground
yellow wings
those small mouths buzzing
the ground has a throat of sweet
and it’s humming around your feet
put some shoes on I tell youthe mound of apples
in the rake and the bees unnervedfruit
falling as we speakwe can’t keep up with itthe apples
that red bird singing
LATER
you speak of the applesfallen from the tree
how many there were
like marbles underfoot but intermittently soft
what they stank of
in the sunlight all the yellow jackets digging into the gnarled flesh
nothing anyone could eat the dull plop
they made in the night the air wet
on our skin, the cicadas
——
CAROL POTTER‘s fourth book of poems, Otherwise Obedient (Red Hen Press, 2007), was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in Lesbian poetry. Her book Short History of Pets won the 1999 Cleveland State Poetry Center Award, and the Balcones Award. Previous books are Upside Down in the Dark, 1995, and Before We Were Born, 1990–both from Alice James Books. Her poems have appeared in Field, Poetry, The American Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner and many other journals and anthologies.
