A child kneels by a “dead” bee.
(Stinging black-and-gold soldier,
where’s your buzzing bluster now?)
Jab!—boxing glove in the face, hard.
A woman bends to change the diaper
on her newborn son. Whizz!—
liquid boxing glove in the face, hard!
And before that, when, wife-to-be,
she showed her “diamond” to a friend’s
jeweler brother-in-law. Prump!—
on a spring, stashed behind a trap door:
boxing glove in the face, very hard.
The asthmatic sniffs a perfect purple
rose; the fisherman lifts—out
of season, right under a warden’s nose—
a red, green, gold, and silver trout;
the widow spades her spore-filled soil;
the child lowers his head to cuddle
Tuffy the pit bull . . . boxing glove
in the face, extremely hard!
This is why the baby howls and bites
the breast—why the old ones rest
in wheelchairs, staring into space,
terror on each toothless, smashed-in face.