CLAIRE MARIE STANCEK

 

                                     



HONEY


Sus
pended like voices bubbling up through honey

A hundred jars of hon
ey held bodies
One is filled with
wings another with a finger another has a piece of information

The voices by the
time they surface
are old     their movement through the gleamy oil    a slow toil
voices mo
ving so long bodiless their bodies long voiceless
at the
bottom of whatever this is

          (Bodies at the bottom for years
          turned shell invaded by gold
          by the
still well every cell
          charged with a sweet th
at
          charges changes  a w
elling
          sweet a drowning
well and
          good but not well)

 

And would have been travelling upwards still were it not for you     Being here
to hear them       emerge

Sick, but are you sick enough  
yet to die in public  on the cement

Becaus
e it was attention

the curl of their bodies around the flower and the care of that gesture

 

Work: the sweetness of work and the uselessness
a
nts begin to moil and the bright money dust squirts and tosses on corn tassels
Neonicotinoid
, the colorless color

 

Are the bodies in the jars or are they  bulbously magnified from behind
pulled through
the poisonous brine by vision only

While you see them in the jar th
ey are in the jar    and held by it and by you
but not only the
objects, object    you yourself are magnified out the other side
and the cupboards and the shelves see you
 and they possess you in their seeing


and your body turns in the golden smear
and your own voice moves too slowly through thickness

A voice parting honey makes the honey’s surface dance
bubbling gargling chopping retching shuddering  the surface of hon
ey dances

The bodies died lo
ng ago now it is your turn
did you think your own attention would be different
bending over flowers open mouthed taking s
weets

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


                                        

             

 

                                   

 

 


TYPO 22