I know everybody here, so it's pretty strange
to get a reading.
My wife couldn't make it tonight,
because she wasn't feeling well.
So I can read all my sex poems, and I can make fun of her.
I'm going to read all-new poems.
OK.
Most of them are lyrics, and a few of them
are lyric narratives.
This is more song.
It's a song more--
never mind.
In spring, at one end the tongue, at the other a stinger.
In between a flying machine that bears the bee from flower
to flower, from field to hive, the fat queen.
The boy picking flowers in the field
is in love with his teacher who's
in love with the carpenter who loves her, and her sister too--
who loves the field and the flowers, but is afraid of bees.
In the field, it's morning for the boy, evening
for the teacher making love with her lover, night for her sister
who wears long, black gloves and a long dress, also black,
so as not to be mistaken for either flower or lover.
Over them all, the fat queen rises
with a drone who will die when it's done,
and they mate on the wing.
That's about the least experiential poem
I've ever written in my life.