Tina Barr

I tossed old split logs from back
of the woodpile, over the slope, then they 
covered my clothes, crawled up inside my pants,
chased me across the driveway. I was
pressing the doorbell, tearing off my shirt.  
The bees were inside; on my ankle
one adhered, curled, plunged his stinger
again and again. At the door yellowjackets 
buzzed around and around my head.

It felt like syringes of magnesium my husband 
puts in. My body can’t make it, and after the syringe 
empties, an ache at that place. Inside I got into a tub:
baking soda and water, then Epsom salts.

I sat for four days, propped against pillows
ice packs on my ankle, inner thigh. My 
husband thought it was snakebite; my
screams I can’t remember. He counted
eight red raised places. First day
the stings hurt, second day they itched. 
Red spread under my skin like a port wine
stain, a birthmark. For days stains kept 
spreading, dragged their itching like a splash of venom
below the skin, indelible, until they turned brown. 

At Karnak I walked for hours, inside a huge shirt;
a skirt rubbed my ankles, made bracelets
of hives. But it was worth the walk past 
the sphinxes, their bodies giant lions, 
heads of rams, each holding a small
king in its paws. We are each between paws.
Under huge pillars, some still showed faded paint,
incised with suns, feathers, priests in 
high cone hats, ochre red, blues, yellow.

Here, on the mountain, the totems are turtles,
hawks; if I’m lucky, a little cub appears inside
the square of my window, trundles his way
down the edge of the cutbank, fur shining.

I phoned Farley about bushwacking; he said
this late, in August nests are biggest, the 
bees angry, hungry, inside their paper head.    
The answer is meat tenderizer; its salts draw
out the venom. You should have called me.
There can be 5,000 in a hive.