Poem of the Week

Our third weekly poem for National Poetry Month is an excerpt from “Bee Suit: Spring Chores with Grandfather” by James Lee, published in the minnesota review, issue 96. the minnesota review publishes contemporary poetry and fiction as well as reviews, critical commentary, and interviews of leading intellectual figures. Learn more about the journal.

He points out marble-sized holes in the ground. Cicadas
make holes like that. Empty shells, brittle husks, cling to
the cherry blossom. I gather them in my hands,
I speak a whisper and hear in the same breath what I mean
speech for; knowledge waits—is waiting—only waiting is
substance and the promise of more. Something glistens
inside a narrow flesh cavity, something is there late
afternoons when I go to my room hunting silence.
What is it the body can’t take anymore of and leaves?
I pull down my curtains, turn off my desk lamp, and
get into bed. I put my left hand over my head so it
feels like another person’s hand over me.
Absence is a test of how to grow into another person.