Stung, a poem by Heid Erdrich
She couldn't help but sting my finger,
clinging a moment before I flung her
to the ground. Her gold is true, not the trick
evening light plays on my roses.
She curls into herself, stinger twitching
gilt wings folded. Her whole life just a few weeks,
and my pain subsided in a moment.
In the cold, she hardly had her wits to buzz.
No warning from either of us:
she sleeping in the richness of those petals,
then the hand, my hand, cupping the bloom
in devastating force, crushing the petals for the scent.
And she mortally threatened, wholly unaware
that I do this daily, alone with the gold last light,
in what seems to me an act of love.
Heid Erdrich teaches in the low-residency MFA program at Augsburg University, and has published 5 volumes of poetry.
Reprinted with the permission of the author. This poem is from the volume, Cell Traffic, University of Arizona Press.
clinging a moment before I flung her
to the ground. Her gold is true, not the trick
evening light plays on my roses.
She curls into herself, stinger twitching
gilt wings folded. Her whole life just a few weeks,
and my pain subsided in a moment.
In the cold, she hardly had her wits to buzz.
No warning from either of us:
she sleeping in the richness of those petals,
then the hand, my hand, cupping the bloom
in devastating force, crushing the petals for the scent.
And she mortally threatened, wholly unaware
that I do this daily, alone with the gold last light,
in what seems to me an act of love.
Heid Erdrich teaches in the low-residency MFA program at Augsburg University, and has published 5 volumes of poetry.
Reprinted with the permission of the author. This poem is from the volume, Cell Traffic, University of Arizona Press.
