Spring

       Forensic Anthropology Center, University of Tennessee, Knoxville

1.

The sun, in shafts and spades.

Through the pine and birches, little breeze setting off
      the leaves —

The leaves.

Their golden green increase.

Pollen to the air, its colonial dream
      of a new imperium of trees —

Snap against the wrist-skin.

And then you press down on the tongue with your gloved thumb
      to let the honey-bee show you the way.

2.

The dark tunnel paths from light to light.

Flay the face and scoop out the eyes — you'll see.

3.

Bees in a cloud round your hand.

Egg-herder, your smell
      synonymous with treasure —

Shining a light at the back of the throat:
      blowflies
in liquid pearls
      the bees murder to eat —

And all at the lips and nose a yellow dust, pollen
      they have
delivered —

You scrape it into a little sack.

4.

Ripple and snap.

Bend to the O of the rigored mouth — listen.

Plastic bags, like souls, caught in trees.

5.

What to harvest,
      from the sloughed-off suits of the dead.

Like sea-shells cupping the ghost-tongue of the sea,
      their black mouths speak —

You crouch to the hum with a bag and a blade. You

the god it sways.

Dana Levin
The Iowa Review
Volume 36, Number 1
Spring 2006

Copyright © 2006, The University of Iowa.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.

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