Poetry — February 12, 2015 10:01 — 0 Comments

Bustle – Brittany Cagle

Old age is flesh close
to the bone, the shrunk spine,
bruises spidering and eyes cupped
by purple crescents.

A flight of bees
swarm deep in the chest,
dark, disturbed, restless—
but what?

The tongue
cannot filter words
out of the buzzing
and begins to braid itself.

Bio:

Brittany Cagle works as a creative writing instructor and writing consultant at the University of South Florida. Her poetry and prose has most recently appeared in The Poet’s Billow, Spry Literary Journal Issues 2 and 4, Sweet: A Literary Confection, Welter, Mad Swirl, and is forthcoming in The Stray Branch and Broad! Magazine. Her poetry was recently nominated for the 2014 and 2015 AWP Intro Journals Award. Her poetry chapbook, My Family Sleeps in New Beds, was selected by The Poet’s Billow for the Pangaea prize, submitted to Best New Poets anthology, and nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2014. She has worked as the nonfiction and art editor for Saw Palm: florida literature and art.

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What am I?

Bioluminescent eye
That sees by the shine
Of its own light. Lies

Blind me. I am the seventh human sense
And my stepchild,
Consequence;

Scientists can't find me.

Januswise I make us men;
Glamour
Was my image then—

Remind me:

The awful fall up off all fours
From the forest
To the hours…

Tick, Tock: Divine me.

-- Richard Kenney