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43 Ode to the Beekeeper —for Stephanie Smith who has taken off her veil and gloves and whispers to the bees in their own language, inspecting the comb-thick frames, blowing just so when one or the other alights on her, if she doesn’t study it first—the veins feeding the wings, the deep ochre shimmy, the singing—just like in the dreams that brought her here in the first place: dream of the queen, dream of the brood chamber, dream of the desiccated world and sifting with her hands the ash and her hands ashen when she awoke, dream of honey in her child’s wound, dream of bees hived in the heart and each wet chamber gone gold. Which is why, first, she put on the veil. And which is why, too, she took it off. gay pages-2.indd 43 10/18/10 11:20 AM ...

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