The Beekeeper's Departure
29-page, limited-edition poetry chapbook
Winner of the 2007 Backwards City Poetry Series Chapbook Prize
Backwards City Press, Greensboro, NC
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Read a review by CutBank, literary journal of the University of Montana.
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THE BEEKEEPER'S DEPARTURE
By Jennifer Chapis
I want to say there was an animal sound,
but even I know that’s not true.
You simply rose into the sky
like a bone-made moon.
By the time I arrived, there remained
no coast to speak of.
Even the bees silent.
History is not behind us.
I have trained myself to know
the open palm of your tongue,
a plum in its breath-blue bowl.
Burning logs kack, shift in a fire pit,
grief’s weight
settling for gravity’s sake,
not a thing the process forced.
In the end, all that matters is the sweetness of longing,
eyes never whole enough.
Think honey-bitterness, drying
drop of sap.
I’ve known you better than anyone.
Two ancient trees on a beach.
Horizon, blister about us—