Dark Pharmacy

          (Poem Starting with a Line by Julianne Buchsbaum)


I long for sleep, that dark pharmacy

so the days crush together in the pedestal

of your smile, and you call me with the bees

within your voice, a honeyed vibration



in the hive of your chest.

I want the inky drug that make this

happen so fluidly. Somnia, O Somnia

my arms are falling numb and useless.



I hear the breath of heavy horses

behind my ears, they sound

like leaves rushing

to some appointment in the earth.



Still I feel the bees come, humming



your message, Queen of the Nocturne,

Queen of Twisting Twilight. I left

on the horse you sent for me,

following your swarm deeper



and deeper into the black landscape

of your countryside. Wind whining

yet I am a cup of water

looking for the place you say



I may lake within you. I bring you slow

fish, eels scarving in the deep, swans

gliding like glaciers across my face.

I have come to feed the trees



that house the bees you rule.

My want is to be a reflection in

your swart irises with their stars

ablaze far inside.



Within the wraps of your

clouds, within your hills and dales

I wish to rest; drift on your season-

less currents to your cathedral,



that willow tree bending to wisp the waters.

Everything there is something else,

the water a narcotic, the grass a choir

of little whistles, the birds all brides



preening. So many beautiful creatures

resting in the hollow of your palms.

I raise a rose for your bees

and construct a house for them in my hands.



I am as hushed as amber. My ear

a rose. I listen for the grinding in twilight,

the promise of the drug that brings

me to this nightly place.