Virginia Bell

MUCH MADNESS

1.
 
i want to tell you:      it's like bees           
     
            being afraid
           
            doesn't make sense
            even though they can 
                                                                                  stick you      
                            
2.
 
believe me:                paranoia is cliché
 
            an adolescent
            who thinks the whole
            pool is staring
 
            at
                        his
                                                dick      
                                                
3.
 
you're my neighbor's cat
he tears out fleas with his teeth
ends up ripping out chunks of his own fur
 
                                                                                    biting his own skin         
                                                                   i find the white tufts on the walk
bits of blood as if
there has been a brawl
 
4.
 
bees                dicks               fleas
 
5.
 
(my left eyelid is twitching)
 
 
6.
 
(it bothers me that wind is inconstant)
 
 
7.
 
it bothers me:            that you
 
            will only use
            a P.O. box
 
            refuse to
            get in the cab
 
 
8.
 
i agree:                       Much Madness is divinest Sense—
 
9.
 
i disagree:                  why must madness
 
            be a trope
            for wisdom?
 
            why sugarcoat
                                                distress?
 
10.
 
you feel alone
but there is no camera in your bathroom
 
the stranger in the magazine is not
looking for you             
          
 
11.
 
bees               
                        dicks      
                                                fleas
 
 
12.
 
you feel alone
because there is no camera in your house
 
 
because the stranger in the magazine
is not looking for you
 
 
13.
 
(i am begging—
)
 
(you must—
)
 
14.
 
 
who you were:     
                  
           
the woman who carried a tree all the way home on her shoulder in the snow

Bell is the author of From the Belly (Sibling Rivalry Press 2012).  Her poetry is forthcoming in Gargoyle and Cider Press Review, and has appeared in Cloudbank, Spoon River Poetry Review, Calyx, Poet Lore, Pebble Lake Review, and other journals and anthologies. Bell is an Editor with RHINO and an adjunct professor at Loyola University Chicago.