…like the taste
of honey on a sharpened razor blade.
— John Wood
Cumulus, nimbus, cirrus, altostratus
(words reversed, right side down)
emboss an invitation across blue light.
A bee-loud meadow (with its hot
jasmine and tremble of breeze)
beckons. Your new life
burgeoning to a vanishing point.
Though you’re not the only one
thinking bitter-sweetly about change
(how sugary syrup can turn).
Look: Cedar then timber, fire.
Blossom, pollen, nectar, honey.
Meantime contrails revise
your dearest lines into white
(a beekeeper leaving enough
only for the survival of the hive).
Like a lover someday lying
on a checkered blanket,
this new life kicks back,
cracks open a longneck,
toasts the clouds, waiting.
Sweetness isn’t a whisper
in your ear (or the moment after)
but the naming of desire.