entwine, I say, ambrosia,

he says, night, the visible world &

the invisible, who speaks by now

unimportant. Honey, you imagine,

must fall like rain, to be gathered up

like pig-corn, but you cannot gather it

yourselves. It would be like holding on

to air. Imagine each flower

pulling this ambrosia up, imagine it might,

like us, begin in darkness.

Geometry

Essential,

with heaven nearly empty of

stars, with mountains still

rising from plains,

like music,

only it can’t be heard.

Before wax

we’d use it to build, carve

pine resin into cells,

fields within hollow trees,

hexagons wired into

our sleep. Vein

of amber, ploughed under by ice—

golden lozenge—

we are still inside.

Innocence

Scale the firs with augers,

bore holes for us to enter. Later still

cut the trees down, hollow

the trunks, lay them on the outskirts

in clearings. Once fear

subsides, place the hives outside

the kitchen, say a prayer, reach bare-

handed in, tear off a fistful.

Innocent as cattle,

we whispered, bring us home,

& you brought us home.

Amber

To hover

the imagined center, our tongues

grew long to please it, licking

the walls, a chamber built of scent,

a moment followed by a lesser moment

& a hunger to return. It couldn’t

last, resin

flowed glacially from wounds in the bark,

pinned us in our entering

as the orchids opened wider. First,

liquid, so we swam until we couldn’t.

Then it felt like sleep, the taste of nectar

still inside us. Sometimes a lotus

submerged with us. A million years

went by. A hundred. Swarm of hoverfly,

cockroach, assassin bug, all

trapped, suspended

in that moment of fullness, a

Pompeii, the mother

covering her child’s head forever.

Melitopoles

When a warrior falls in battle,

beloved &

far from home, the melitopoles

sell their finest grade

to suspend his vanquished corpse in honey.

Thus his body will cease

to decay, will last the road

back. Seal him behind glass

& you could gaze upon

his unchanged face, tinted

amber, but glass

will not survive such portage. Even honey

cannot hold him forever,

his mouth forced open, shocked

eyes, every pore

now filled with sweetness.

Wax (Jesus)

Around it you built churches, vaulted

cathedrals, containers of

light. Wax transmogrified

into candle, candle

to his body, the wick his soul. Roses

surround the coffin, wax seals

the lid—thirty pounds burns constantly

under his bleeding hands, votives lit

by anyone with a coin.

Blind Huber (vii)

Endless parade, each thought un-

seen, one pushes onto the

next, replaces what

was, this chain whispered quiet—false

promise that, once under-

stood, it will end, transform to a moment

empty of thought. How

riddled, to sit in a garden, lungs

spooling the sky, the in

& the out, impossible

physics, each plea lined up,

each moment now measured,

weighed, a queen’s limited frenzy

within a glass hive.

Paper Wasp

Because trees grew thick & demon-

full, you felled whole counties,

built walls against the night. Shack