REBECCA HAWKES
Poem for my wife
you and I know best where honey comes from
the throbbing body the hidden sting
and it happened you did not hesitate to feed the bee
crawling sluggishly to the lace at your hem
as though you were the largest flower ever
which is a comparison of some merit my gross orchid
colossal peony tremendous gardenia
I could go on don’t blush so
it is a treasure to me that you are always lifting
your ruddy face and your skirts to the sun
proceeding with a blossom’s sense of duty
you lifted the lost forager on your fingers
guessed at her mood from the flex of her antenna
and pulsing abdomen you mixed her a sip of sugar water
then sent her on the breeze later we discussed
our admiration of bees their downy striations
their hardy protestant work ethic though on principle
we did not agree with the rigidity of their class system
and it seems neither did she our honeybee returned to us
days later as a sort of woman her hands full of honey
nearly solid in its comb and a clotted choir of her old swarm
humming their perplexity as she came
shaking her lovely lower body
in a dance of gratitude
she had not yet mastered speech
though we could not doubt her story as we understood it
Melissa for this was the name we gave her
was visibly unused to reliance on pumping lungs
her organs no longer awash in hemolymph
and her too few limbs seemed hardly able to grip
without their barbs though need I say
what she missed most dearly were the wings
they were still attached when she arrived
shimmering chitin grown proportional to her human torso but
even with those muscles rippling like a horse’s flank
you could see the wings were so heavy
they dragged her back to what she had once been
and the veins in them like wrought iron
castle gates or dense black brambles
half horrifying though the wings held the evening
light as well as any church window
or better if you say so
we did what any well meaning couple would do
didn’t we darling we took her in clad the little lady fed her
sweet tea and shortbread prepared the good quilt for the spare bed
and as she was sleeping sharpened the pruning shears
we unpacked our traditional beekeeping garb
from our wedding billowing in linen and leather
with woven wicker baskets over our faces
and a soothing spell of smoke a simple but pleasant fragrance
of charring pine needles egg cartons and dry manure
the act itself took longer than expected
yet Melissa made hardly a sound of complaint
as each wing finally came loose at the stump
and rustled down the side of the mattress
in fairness our poor thing never said a great deal
at first when she opened her mouth golden nectar drooled out
then later a pour of darker liquid thick and sour
though she would choke a word out upon request
and when the whim moved her
she had a knack for prophecy suddenly trilling such things as
every summer will be the hottest summer yet
for ever and ever amen unwinding the bar graphs
on their incline like the thriving reeds whistling
from the estuary that will swallow your willful stupidity
I hope to see all this the sea taking apart your house
board by rotting board and sucking you sickos down
at that time we found it prudent not to take such outbursts too seriously
if her eyes started to glow from behind their many facets
we simply excused ourselves from polite company
this being before all the business with the venom
though in a way I miss that too no dear
I don’t regret how you ended it come let me clasp you
it brought us together forgive me
my sentimentality of course this was all such a long time ago
but sometimes I wake again to the angry hive like singing hail
throwing their thousandfold bodies against the windows
and you are still pulling
greasy hanks of her black and blonde hair
out of the shower drain even now while I set about
adding the plague of peacocks
that have descended so iridescently on our settlement
to the regional council’s pest management plan
The Conservationist
i.
the farmer’s daughter unbuttons old red overalls
rolls the sleeves around her waist
tanning topless on the quad bike
her skin is tussock gold
dewy with glyphosate
high priestess of the mountain range
she holds her spray wand aloft
incantates death diluted from concentrate
that drenches nodding thistle heads
toxins slick the silvery filigree of spines
bees unlatch from crimson eyes
spin away dizzy
jewel wings dripping penetrant
ii.
the farmer’s daughter surveys the back blocks
grazed stubble infested with dread rosettes
the thistles’ soft explosions aloft
above the bike’s low gear grumble
and spray pump’s pulsing
there rises
a mewling from the tree stumps
iii.
the farmer’s daughter steeped in honeydew reek amid black beech
digs between the crumbled roots
loam seething through holes in her garden gloves
four kittens huddle in a deadwood knot
so new their irises still glow pale indigo
the farmer’s daughter catches the slowest
its tiny screams shards of sunlight
claws little crystal thistle prickles
ripping through her gloves
but now she has the kitten in her hands
what then for the pest
the mere weight of quick breath
the mother cat and the other kittens blurs already
fled into the bush
this soft furred vermin
flawless awful
psycho killer in waiting
but not yet
for now it is barely the frantic whirr
of an unhinged heartbeat clutched in a palm
kneading its captor for comfort
what can she do
in these valleys
too precious with birds
to let go any fanged thing
iv.
the correct course of action
as usual
is to kill
v.
but the stream has gone dry
no puddles even for drowning
and she is too soft
hearted
to swing it on a rock
besides the farmer’s daughter has lost her faith in the hardness
of stones / of skulls
the kitten’s pupils are slit to blindness
thin and useless as its scratches
the farmer’s daughter sculpts a nest from a beanie
snarled with burrs in the bike’s front toolbox
the kitten keens as she closes the lid
vi.
the farmer’s daughter sloshes
like the hundred poison litres in the yellow plastic tank behind her
she is a turbid mix
of murder and croon
grim with the handlebars
thumbing the clutch
hands flexing restless
to snap necks / to caress
vii.
the farmer’s daughter heads for home at hellraised speed
someone at home will know what to do
dust plumes dull her scarlet hems
clinging to the mountain
each gully and precipice
only smears in her periphery
shingle arcs in drifts
gravel clatters down the steep slip
ferns whip her shins to bruises
the spray wand falls
behind the bike
unspooling
a golden thread
a trailing trace of wasted wetness
she turns to spot it
the kitten cries from the glovebox
viii.
the bike goes over and over
until it stops
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rebecca Hawkes is a clot of pure love forced to live in a human shaped body which she now has to take care of for the rest of its life (ew!!!!!). She paints nude witches and radioactive lambs, writes about queer rural idyll and moody werewolves, and edits the journal Sweet Mammalian. Her first poetry chapbook ‘Softcore Coldsores’ can be found in AUP New Poets 5 which launched in 2019 to revitalise the series. You can also find her work in various journals like Minarets, Scum, and Landfall, or at her vanity mirror www.rebeccahawkesart.