To the bee that stung me
while I labored in the garden,
my fears, my penitence, my doubts—
these are my flaws,
a thing of flesh and blood.
Passionless sting, I flee your solitary
rational hurt, for the rose is your sister;
the prick of love’s burn and tender delight
hums me alive with the deepest blush,
a consummation.
The grace of flight, untroubled pace,
is your pious gift, while I host illusion.
Your lofty indifference is but lingering absence,
offering none of a heart’s mystery
heaped with frenzied oracle,
endowed with fulfillment.
Scared with love
I break out into blossom.
Moon drifts where I walk.
This and
sweet bright bloom on the edge
of its own invention.
In my loquacity I exercise
my web of lines in which to tangle,
thrilling atavistic bits of self
flung, to root, dizzying
vertigo where life is born.
—Stephen Cipot
