Do Not Discount the Bee as Spirit Guide

Issue 13

A page in a worn dream-book, thin and crumpled, reads:
 
Bee tastes with legs, feet, able to determine
whether there is nectar
in the flower it lands upon.
 
In large red rose bloom
    color of October sun    color of blood   
    color of spirit river poured into glasses
bee bubbled awake,
its brilliant eyes, honeydripping
 
as it dangled in front of my forehead on a curl
    little jeweled Victorian pin
 
and with busy forelegs used to foraging gold dust,
reached down, cleared a film from my eyes
pulled my truth,
deep nectar well,
around me.
 
I stretched into dawn and dew
as though I’d slept beneath the rose bed.
 
My thoughts petaled with thorn of intuition
previously stolen by your polyester words.
 
How clearly I was able to see you then.
The way you had witched me into staying.
 
How easy it was to pull the strands of my hair
from your grasp,
reclaim all my bones,
re-skin my body,
turn this road of bloodletting
into a path clustered with flowers,
at first the colors of bloodcurdling screams,
violent bruise-shaded tendencies, then calmer tints,
and after journeying barefoot, away and away and away
from you, dusted soles punctured with thorny goat-head mis-steps,
I curled to sleep in the center of a flower,
its apricot frills entering my dreams like gentle sea dragons,
and woke into myself.

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Ruth Martinez has works published in Ofrenda Magazine, Lunaluna, Cordella Press, Poetry As Promised, Witchology Magazine, The Hopper, Black Moon Magazine and Ice Floe Press. She co-wrote an Indie book of poetry, Crow Moon, with her good comadre Anna Griego, and Bottlecap Press published her chapbook Root Women.

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