July 2021
Bio Note: I attempt to help our Veterans heal as a RN in the Seattle area. In former lives I taught high school, practiced acupuncture, and managed aquatic centers. I try to be funny for my lovely kids and wife, but I am mostly arthritic and cranky. My third book of poetry, These Hands of Myrrh, is upcoming from Kelsay Books.
poppies
when the first california poppies open
my toddler son grasps each tangerine
membrane in his fist measures it in his grip
(and hopefully not his lips)
and throws it to the ground
then goes to the next flower
now the blooms have erupted
like rebellious languages
on the stalks too many dialects
to put in the hand or the tongue
and now the bumblebees hum
and dance into each orange mouth
and he stands there transfixed
by the vibrating patterns of flight and dive
by the electric wings blurring
and the pollen-laden bodies arcing out
to circle his frame and entangle their thighs
in the styles reaching out of the ovaries
and he starts to reach for a flower
inhabited by a bee and he stops
before i warn him “careful
careful they can sting you”
he somehow knows this already
something about their erratic behavior
something about the hollow purr of lift
cycling 200 times per second—
a warning that this is god creating life
and somewhere in the black fur there is a miracle
but also a sudden ache—a filament of glass
inside each hovering ghost
©2021 Scott Ferry
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