Anaphylaxis as Apotheosis
Naïve with sweetness, the bees hive-crowd: sugar
swarm the maraschino factory, siphon redness like a sunset 

until zaftig—honeystomachs lining silk with cordial 
as we triage for backrooms where we can slough off 

wintering: feed our own bodies so full with blood and bees
that we might re-dress ourselves in the welting. Skin-close 

or closing: thrum like a barebulb-light; the sudden tightness 
of teeth next to teeth. Dear red wet match-sting 

in our mouths, taste we’ve been tendering-for. 
How speech is a pheromone 

that incites the alarm. And our throats—: as closed 
as cherries. As undivine. No grief 
		
in the swelling. In the numb bulbs left to be carried 
off from the hive. Such a crushed 

and candied liqueur: husk of bees and us, almost
unrecognizable in the plush housing of dyes—

blushed to a fevering, garmentless.
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