Seth Pennington

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Seth Pennington

Grandma Tells You About the Bees, Forgets the Birds

 
When I still wore things that made me beautiful
in spring time on Snake Island, there were days so thick
by the honeysuckle you could catch bees in your bare hands,
as if the humidity asked to take their photograph,
they’d just freeze in the heat, and if you kept them
in the dark, they wouldn’t sting; they’d think it night.
Right when you let them go, that burst of sun would
break their hearts, and they’d drop belly up,
dead as a beat fish on the bank. I’d stick them through
and pin them to my pillow with their own sad stinger.
For a week, I’d sleep with them covering my face in their velvet.
Then come summer, the boys would just swarm me.

 

Seth Pennington reads “Grandma Tells You About the Bees, Forgets the Birds”


Seth Pennington is Editor-in-Chief at Sibling Rivalry Press and is author of Tertulia. He was editor of the journal Assaracus and has been honored as co-editor of Joy Exhaustible by the American Library Association and by the Rare Books and Special Collections Division of the Library of Congress for his editorial, layout, and design work with SRP. He lives in Little Rock, Arkansas, with his husband, Bryan Borland.