by Christine Sloan Stoddard
Toward a Delusion of Flight
before flight, birds
first exhaust all other possibilities
flightless, I
preen my draggled feathers: our fathers’
ease means we may fly, I say
someday, grown, I know better: I am
not bird—
mother sun, father
moon, I am pinioned not winged: my feather-roots grow
through rock: my shadow, when cast, can
only stretch toward cliff’s edge—
one day, I wake
into rootlessness: I know
rock erodes: I watch my shadow cast into
the shape of a bird
at sundown, I pluck
breast feathers, blue-green iridescent, each
bloodied quill a loaded pen.
To the Man Who Left a Jar of Bees at the Bookstore
man in a blue coat, not yellow: what compels you
to travel with bees? are these your familiars, jarred
and buzzy, waiting to break loose
and juice you into action? is that why you left them
in the necromancy section?
man in blue, do you believe
bees’ pollen-coated feet can dance a dusty measure
on your sleeve, and weave a constellation?
do you grieve, overcoated man, for bees so easily
forgotten among books? you cared for them
once: you punched holes in the lid of their glass cell—
bringer-of-bees, we have not placed your apiary
in lost-and-found, with umbrellas: your bees, bless
their soft, striped souls, are reading, through
glass, from the Georgics of Virgil: we have shown
them prints by Monet and Van Gogh—
blue man, blues man, come get your bees
before we close: we bought them violets, and now
they are abuzz, getting down in their mason jar
made for honey: we fed them
sugar-water on a spoon, then left them
alone in orchestral scores: they are ready to jam—
bee-man, do you keep bees
for their sweetness? do you believe
they can heal your body
with pain-killing venom? do you want them
to die for you?
if your bees die, waiting
we will pour nectar over them: we will place
their glass casket among the staff picks, and prepare
a waxen image as a monument: we will
open our doors to bees who mourn.
Jude Marr tutors, teaches, and writes poetry, as protest. Their chapbook, Breakfast for the Birds, came out in 2017 from Finishing Line Press, and their full-length manuscript, We Know Each Other By Our Wounds, was a recent semi-finalist for Word Works’ Washington Prize. Jude’s poetry has otherwise cropped up in diverse publications: recent credits include AUIS: the literary journal of the American University of Iraq at Sulaimani; Eye Flash Poetry in the UK; and Is it Hot in Here, or is it Just Me?, an anthology from the Beautiful Cadaver Project in Pittsburgh. In their spare time, Dr. Jude Marr is Director of the Reading-Writing Center and Digital Studio at Florida State University.
Twitter @JudeMarr1
Instagram jude.marr
Website judemarr.com
Christine Sloan Stoddard is a Salvadoran-American author and interdisciplinary artist who lives in Brooklyn. Her books include Force Fed, Desert Fox by the Sea, Belladonna Magic, Water for the Cactus Woman, and other titles. She co-edited Her Plumage: An Anthology of Women’s Writings by Quail Bell Magazine for Quail Bell, the art and literary journal she founded. In 2019, she became the first-ever artist-in-residence at Lenox Hill Neighborhood House and earned her MFA from The City College of New York in Manhattan. Later that year, Christine became the artist-in-residence at Heartshare Human Services of New York, where she leads art workshops for adults with disabilities and creates artwork for display. Continuing in the direction of her poetry films like Jaguar in the Cotton Field, Done, and Marine Encounters, Christine has been selected to collaborate with poet Teri Elam for the 2020 Visible Poetry Project. 2020 will mark the release of Christine’s books Naomi & the Reckoning (Finishing Line Press) and Heaven Is A Photograph (CLASH Books).