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  • This Bell Like a Bee Striking
  • Mary Jo Bang (bio)

Exactly, thought. Here she is having a mind.A moon ghastly light on a person. To sufferemotion, throat stiff, child grown. Larger.A whole. Summoned so one can have a look.Summoned to husband what's happened.

The light challenged the powersof feeling: frightening, exhilarating, surprise,shame. It was over. Plaster and litter alone.Five acts that had beenover and over. A strange power speaking.

Some concern for the half-past. Ring after ringlike something coming. It is thought,this bell like a bee striking.The future lies in a patter like a wood drummed.A sensual traffic: what, where, and why.

Three emotions. Shutters and avenues.The red burning. A lizard's color in her eyes.Evening wearing the fringes in the windows.The light wavering in the darkness streets.Atoms turned. Thinking like the pulse—

punctually, noiselessly silk-stockinged.Ridiculous. Her mother grown big.She, like most mothers, a swept shuffleof traffic and dress and nothingexcept the flutter of absolution. [End Page 58]

Such are things merged. The cupboard outlinebecomes soft. A table. Cigarette smoke.A baby bright pink. Daring with being.That dog. Lots of coldness. Yet, some powerto preside with her head, with her shoulders,

through dinner. A sort of maternal politics.Her dress disappearing. Sweeping off for bedwith headaches. Still, the sun. The squirrels.Pebbles to the pebble collection. She blinksat the crack of a twig behind the bedroom walls. [End Page 59]

Mary Jo Bang

Mary Jo Bang's sixth collection of poems, The Bride of E, will be published in fall 2009 by Graywolf Press. She teaches at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.

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