Hive Mind
i.
I remember the dog-eared atlas
in the backseat pocket of
my father’s car
the muddy footprint I left on it
with my baby-sized shoe
bisecting
elevation lines
rivers
and routes
when you tell me
that you think
we’re handling this well
my mornings
have begun to cleave at me
cut clean edges like
painters’ tape
I feel my loneliness when the sun is just up
by night I distract myself, seek action in
pursuits that do not require
a partner.
prowl around piles of dirty clothes
pretend I’m looking for lost things
eat three-quarters of a loaf of bread
sing to the stubborn mice in the walls
but mice are
inscrutable critics, and only
give notes
in the form of
skitters
and scat.
ii.
grey-green ash features heavily in my dreams
and when I wake
I’m rich in sea glass
those angry sharp edges
blunted numb, sanded round
I want to brine myself in merlot, kerosene, whipping cream
roll myself in rice and inch worms, cottonwool
see my skin twist
after choice tars and feathers
I speculate I may elicit
the smell of hot butter in pans
when my surface
spits and sizzles
with the heat
of me
bottled inside
what can I do with my glass, with my feathers?
may I trade you for your own?
or should I burn them?
I’ll sleep on it
iii.
but this morning I have peeled nails off
fingers
in strips
cuticles gone too
I look like I have searched
through the free bin
at a slaughterhouse
I want to tell you
when you call
that I feel I’m devolving in this room
between the stairs and
the sink
that the dust that sticks to my feet
from unswept floors
feels like the house
wants me to leave
that I think
one thousand
nine hundred
forty
nine
miles
away
with you
would be better
would be worse
but I do not say these things.
you suggest your music for my stress:
Ravel
Dvořák
Shostakovich
but when I look them up
their phrases mingle
I seize on the silence
between the tracks
listen for breaths
study the conductors’ batons
for the point
iv.
I have questions for you
wrote them down
on the top of the memo
that was sent out at work
about employee bonuses
(I am not eligible)
before I went
to the specimen room
today it’s bees
hundreds of bumbles pinned
on white Styrofoam
their wings stretched
in sets of rigid ellipses
twelve to each
they have released
a waxy crayon smell
that takes me
back to primary school
did they have it before they
found themselves
in boxes?
I have never smelled a live bee
I want to show you these
busy dead things
take your arm
introduce you to every
singular, fat one
tell you the names
Kenmore
Nigel
Frizzle
and Meth
as we go down the line
I want to touch them
with you
right rogue antennae
finger stingers
lace our hands
together
around one
keeping it
between us
Laura Beth Kujawa is a cross-genre writer living in Burlington, Vermont. She received an MFA in Writing & Publishing from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. A life-long New Englander, she speaks fluent leaf-peeper, snow bunny, and dairy cow.
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