Becca Klaver
One threatened, swung down from
July’s rafters like a drunken Peter Pan.
I made of it a striped doll’s muff
to protect cool rubber hands.
One gave up its coded cause,
spun dead onto the stoop.
I made of it an amulet and woke up
swollen and contagious.
The queen, she knows me, has sent
her minions through the car window,
down the walls of my coffee mug.
Don’t forget to check,
or else smarting and spittle.
I flinch and they drown.
If the question is are you allergic
the answer is allergic to what.
I would give up honeyed bites
to halt their sting & extraction.
I’d wear drab clothes, cartwheel
through clover, kick and pull
far out into the lake.
Born & raised in Milwaukee, Becca Klaver is a graduate of the
University of Southern California, and is currently an MFA candidate in poetry
at Columbia College Chicago. She's a founding editor of Switchback Books, a
2006-07 editor of Columbia Poetry Review,
and a summer 2006 editorial intern for poetryfoundation.org.