Suppose you know your friends
have been together for five years
without ever having sex, and then
they marry. Even the words we're enjoying
the toaster seem scorched onto the thank-you note,
seem frenzied with innuendo.
And there they are, up against
the kitchen counter of your mind,
the settings twisted to dark, burnt bread
panting out hotly from the two slots
like twin beds aflame, a jar of something sweet
tipped and spilling a slow-motion stream
to the tile. Perhaps it is not how you would do it,
but it makes sense, how they did it:
the wedding in the Midwest,
the land like a sheet, one corn-colored mile
unfolding after another; the honeymooning
not in Greece or Paris
but at home, all things being new
and sharp as untried registry knives.
Imagine the bear
standing before that at-long-last hive,
how he's all skin and bones
from living so long
on nuts and berries.
Listen for the bees of yes
and no and not yet
swarming sleepy, subdued from the smoke
of the fire just lit. Above, the old hunger
moon grows to overflowing,
is pinned between waxing and waning.
And the first taste—
the condensed collection, the work,
the wait, the intricate dance
of all those years—
tastes sweeter taken straight
from the paw.
--Rebecca Hoogs, 2004