Come-Hither Honeycomb by Erin Belieu

Author:Erin Belieu
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Copper Canyon Press
Published: 2021-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

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My son and I we’ve gotten good at being quiet

after all those years of someone else’s noise. Not

unhappy quiet but better than most at keeping still.

It can feel willful at the holidays when half the time

I’m left to herd the silence on my own but mostly

we ghost along contentedly through our dailiness.

My son says he’s convinced if we were predators

we’d dive more silently than barn owls who are

extremely silent with feathers notched like steak knives

that break the air to make them so. On other days

we are benign slowly shifting from room to room more

stealthy than giraffes whom scientists believe at most

emit a noncommittal hum though their experiments can’t

entirely decide. Most often drowning comes to us

like this: so very quietly while those dithering in the boil

forget one decent option to consider: save yourself.

Once my son went under sneaky-like

right behind my back when I was lifeguard for his Tiny

Tuna pre-K class. Once he vanished absolutely

inside a rack of discount dresses at a giant mall

pretending to hang there like an affordable floral print.

He watched me call and call my terror bursting

skyward all glassy spangle and screech a one-woman

fireworks display. And because

he wasn’t obviously damaged I now take pleasure in

the thought of him invisible inside those dearly

purchased minutes loosed from the flaming dirigible

of my fear the red balloon unknotted from his wrist.

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