Life enters: magic; a monster, life enters. A world: a mirror image of a hive; a hive: cells connected to the other side. Pollen: life’s command scattered on skin; Spirit: the will to honey. Work: what it takes to survive; what it takes to live: a diet of magic. Magic is uncanny—an interruption, like the poem. An interruption asks the question, Why is there anything at all? A crisis enters like a monster. Truth stands in the door, flower in hand. A vessel bears the truth in monstrous form. The world wants to kill it. A child holds a monster’s hand and walks through the door of wonder, sees a hive dancing like the sun in a mirror. Sees a man.

—

Robert Fernandez is the author of Scarecrow (Wesleyan University Press, 2016), as well as Pink Reef (2013) and We Are Pharaoh (2011), both published by Canarium Books. He is also cotranslator of Azure (Wesleyan University Press, 2015), a translation of the work of Stéphane Mallarmé. www.robert-fernandez.com