Her Mother’s Bees
by Alexandra Seidel
A girl
covered in nothing but a scarf of a thousand thousand bees
and the bees
feasting on her like they would on a flower
extracting nectar from her pores,
her scented skin
the buzzing lifts the air;
it floats
and settles around your head
like a cauldron, upside down
Do you understand
that honey is food for bees,
jealously guarded?
You paint your lips golden
and light a cigar
so your image can waver in the smoke
The girl looks at you, shy thing,
brushing her scarf with a hand
bee wings trembling
as her fingers touch them
My mother gave me this scarf,
she says, eyes dropping to your
black leather shoes
I know,
say you, and from your pocket
like a piece of legerdemain
you produce a pomegranate
the purplish red so much brighter
than the humming
You tear the fruit’s skin away
with your teeth,
spit it on the floor,
hold the twinkling seeds up to her face
Take it, you say, eat,
and you watch her
shed her mother’s scarf
The Girl and Her Cloud
by Alexandra Seidel
There is a darkness about that girl
and it follows her
like a pet cloud on a leash
tenderly licking her cheeks with raindrops
filling her gaze with mirrored thunder
as she walks among others
talks or flirts, tells gossip but
keeps secrets to herself
you can smell the darkness
of the cloud like a hail storm on the air
her lungs are filled with wind
but that makes her kisses no less sweet
In bed, there is sunset-scratched cloudshine
reflected in her eyes
but you know that the cloud won’t leave her
so you do
and watch her stroll away
as if jumping from puddle to puddle
In the curve of her spine you see even more
clouds forming, conquering silvery horizon;
you remember how people have died
facing clouds, tornadoes, flash floods,
lightning, swallowed by snow storms
and you know you’ll never see her again
Notes from the author:
On “Her Mother’s Bees”
This poem was born from smoke, the smoke beekeepers use to distract bees. And it is one more poem about Persephone, obviously, though for me the driving image here were Demeter’s bees feasting on Persephone, watching over her and keeping her nigh immobile.
On “The Girl and her Cloud”
A poem about suicide, survival, and choice. Or just two people who are too different, if this interpretation is more to your liking.
Alexandra Seidel writes poems and stories of strange things and people, and some of her tales are darker than others. She swears, sometimes ideas come to her all fancy dressed with painted masks of scarlet and emerald, silver and gold. Thanks to some strangely good fortune, her work is (or soon will be) Out There: Bull Spec, Strange Horizons, Mythic Delirium, Goblin Fruit and others. Alexandra is the poetry editor for Niteblade and Fantastique Unfettered. You can read her blog (which she really tries to update once or twice a month) here: www.tigerinthematchstickbox.blogspot.com
Loading tweets...
2 comments
2 pings
Eddie
December 27, 2011 at 5:30 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Gorgeous use of language and I loved the mythical underpinnings. Just, wow. They seem to sit together like a set.
Alexa Seidel
December 27, 2011 at 7:16 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Thank you! I appreciate that
The Great Geek Manual » Free Fiction Round-Up: November 29, 2011
December 2, 2011 at 7:03 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
[...] The Girl and Her Cloud by Alexandra Seidel [...]
The Great Geek Manual » Free Fiction Round-Up: March 6, 2012
March 21, 2012 at 7:31 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
[...] The Girl and Her Cloud by Alexandra Seidel [...]