from Bee Suit: Spring Chores with Grandfather
- from Bee Suit: Spring Chores with Grandfather
He points out marble-sized holes in the ground. Cicadasmake holes like that. Empty shells, brittle husks, cling tothe cherry blossom. I gather them in my hands,I speak a whisper and hear in the same breath what I meanspeech for; knowledge waits—is waiting—only waiting issubstance and the promise of more. Something glistensinside a narrow flesh cavity, something is there lateafternoons when I go to my room hunting silence.What is it the body can't take anymore of and leaves?I pull down my curtains, turn off my desk lamp, andget into bed. I put my left hand over my head so itfeels like another person's hand over me.Absence is a test of how to grow into another person. [End Page 39]
James Lee is a ministerial candidate in a confessional Presbyterian denomination. Having received his MFA from the University of California, Irvine, he previously taught writing throughout Southern California. His poems have appeared in Interdisciplinary Studies of Literature and the Environment and in Christianity and Literature and are forthcoming in Juked. He is currently at work on a manuscript of poems, tentatively titled "Cheating the House."
