Misericord

Misericord Phillip B. Williams (bio) Silence: the body down, as expected. A fragrance nets the room: incense or a night cap: a bee circles your open mouth’s liqueur, lands on the near-dry curve of your open eye. I close neither. The bee orbits your lens—black orchid mirror— kisses that rum-rushed door, gathers its reflection in an iris’s glossed amber, shivers pollen onto your lips, your eyelash. Is this what is meant by enter the light? Golden veil, golden fur, golden rule; Jason’s fleece, how I’d wrap you around my shoulder, smell your fat, unrendered— how you like it, is it? A final possession—camouflage; cataract, silk. O to wear you like a gown, a freshly dug grave over which bees weave the scent of wet grass, wet as though expecting— [End Page 799] I watch the bee to learn discipline, mistaking that as reason—a queen, a comb near, or not so near—for its diligence, and not the real reason: desire, that it is like honey, how slowly, slowly it comes; my mouth over you, goes down. [End Page 800] Phillip B. Williams Phillip B. Williams is a native of Chicago and a Cave Canem fellow. He is author of Bruised Gospels. His work has also appeared in such periodicals as African American Review, Boxcar Poetry Review, Sou’wester, and Painted Bride Quarterly. He currently serves as poetry editor of Vinyl Poetry. Copyright © 2011 The Johns Hopkins University Press

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