ISSN: 1941-4137
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
Christen Noel Kauffman lives in Richmond, Indiana with her husband and two daughters. She holds a MFA from Northern Michigan University. Her work can be found or is forthcoming in The Cincinnati Review, Booth, Willow Springs, Threadcount, DIAGRAM, and The Normal School, among others.
Poets Resist
Edited by Benjamin Rozzi
April 25, 2019
Edited by Benjamin Rozzi
April 25, 2019
Sweat Bees
When they hollowed out a place for themselves
somewhere below the retina and optic nerve,
not so far in that the world turned black,
the woman didn’t think she could ask them to leave.
At night when their legs scratched against
the eyelid rim, no one told her she could demand
a reprieve. That her body wasn’t meant to house
the abdomen or elongated wings. That even as a girl
she owned every inch of her own slick skin,
and a man didn’t have to press his hands
against her neck. No one told her how the bees
looked for eyes full of saline drip. When her mother
died, how they swallowed and gulped the river salt-dry
and everyone thought she’d forgotten how to feel.
No one told the woman it was all a mistake:
the bees and the way a man held her by the wrists.
That she is not the sum of their round venom sacks,
or the empty nests they build and leave behind.
Poets Resist is published by Glass Poetry Press.
All contents © the author.
All contents © the author.
