Canning Rings
A granite staircase switchback of exposed combs
leads to views of Sand Beach and the Gulf of Maine.
Ladders and rungs rock scramble the queen cage
like casket bier pins —the mortician of bees in blue.
You’d wrap your knee
as if you were going to hike
but we both knew you’d say
the old tennis injury was too much.
You could’ve just said you didn’t like heights,
didn’t like being exposed, naked for the cliff
face to gape at, for the falcon to see through.
The honey wasn’t worth it
and you preferred blueberries, anyway.
Picking a bushel in Machias
and dancing barefoot in the kitchen,
canning rings around your wrists
the jam bangling on the stove
both of us forgetting to stir
forgetting the bees in blue;
our love already breaking down
with years too thick to remember
Damon Hubbs: film & art lover / pie bird collector / lapsed tennis player / his latest chapbook, ‘Rimbaud’s Lighthouse,’ is forthcoming from Naked Cat Press