Cover

Note to the Reader on Text Size

his father’s eyes, the bones pressing up from the cheeks,

We recommend that you adjust your device settings so that all of the above text fits on one line; this will ensure that the lines match the author’s intent. If you view the text at a larger than optimal type size, some line breaks will be inserted by the device. If this occurs, the turn of the line will be marked with a small indent.

Blind Huber

Blind Huber

poems by

NICK FLYNN

Graywolf Press

Copyright

Copyright © 2002 by Nick Flynn

Publication of this volume is made possible in part by a grant provided by the Minnesota State Arts Board, through an appropriation by the Minnesota State Legislature, a grant from the Wells Fargo Foundation Minnesota, and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Significant support has also been provided by the Bush Foundation; Marshall Field’s Project Imagine with support from the Target Foundation; the McKnight Foundation; and other generous contributions from foundations, corporations, and individuals. To these organizations and individuals we offer our heartfelt thanks.

Special funding for this title has been provided by the Jerome Foundation.

Published by Graywolf Press

250 Third Avenue North, Suite 600

Minneapolis, MN 55401

Published in the United States of America

ISBN: 978-1-55597-373-5

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-55597-933-1

2  4  6  8  9  7  5  3

Library of Congress Control Number: 2002102973

Cover photograph: Morgan Mazzoni, Africanized killer bee’s tail end (Apis mellifera scutellata)

© Tony Stone

Cover design: Scott Sorenson

for F.R.

He already had the water, but he had to discover jars …

—Thich Nhat Hanh, The Heart of Buddhist Teaching

Blind Huber (i)

Opaque glow where my eyes should be,

what remaining light, eyelids

thin against it. Soothing,

as if all I pass were encrusted in wax,

dipped upright—wax bush & wax

bench, wax man, wax tea, waxy cup to waxy

lips, my eyes now more like their eyes,

morning filtered beyond translucence

as the acolytes cover their queen.

By the sound they will soon

swarm, clockwork, the frenzied heat of wings

forms droplets on the walls of

their city, their city softening, now twisting

just out of shape.

Swarm

When you see us swarm—rustle of

wingbeat, collapsed air—your mind

tries to make us one, a common

intelligence, a single spirit un-

tethered. You imagine us merely

searching out the next

vessel, anything

that could contain us, as if the hive

were just another jar. You try

to hold the ending, this

unspooling, make it either

zero or many, lack

or flurry. I was born,

you begin, & already each word

makes you smaller. Look at this field—

Cosmos. Lungwort. Utter each

& break

into a thousand versions of yourself.

You can’t tell your stories fast enough.

The answer is not one, but also

not two.

Blind Huber (ii)

I sit in a body & think of a body, I picture

Burnens’ hands, my words