House, Vessel, Hive

That was the summer of wings
and milk, of the music of bees and cries
of hunger, golden honey between
walls hot with furious work.

Hundreds of small mouths
murmured as a single body
emerged from a pregnant twilight:
nine full months of crystals
arranging their molecules
to sugar the dark.

My body was a hive warming
the queen – a house of one heart on
doubletime turning sweet to blood, blood
into body, her body danced slowly
at the end of the red rope, luminescent
in the watery comb.

Both vessels were full to splitting.
The corpus of the house, the shelter
of the womb, the whole matrix cracked
open at once as her wings unfolded
in the perfumed afternoon
humming with purpose.

“House Vessel Hive”
Acrylic, Text, Child’s Dress
25” x 72” Triptych, 2005