Second Language by Lisel Mueller

Author:Lisel Mueller
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: LSU Press
Published: 1986-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

FACETS

When you look at a bee,

give it your simple-eyed

appraisal of intention,

hundreds of eyes look back.

One lights on the childhood scar

under your lip, one counts

the pulse in your temple, one

discovers the rip in your blouse—

but why go on? You are

segmented, a Cubist figure,

and you stand, the only actor,

in an amphitheater

of purple clover, watched

by thousands who miss nothing,

who catch the slightest flicker

of an eyelash, a hair on your arm.

You will never be

the innocent you were

before you read about them,

their habits, and how ancient,

almost eternal, they are.

There was a time when you put ice

on an occasional bee sting

and then forgot it, thinking

it inadvertent, haphazard,

that nothing would kill itself over you.

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