Fall 2023

Pollination

By Andrew K. Clark

(after Lindsey Alexander)

My beard is a honeycomb you lick when hungry.
On your way to the icebox,
on our daily hike through the woods,
you can’t help but stop and taste it.
Bright and untamed,
zizzing like bees
in a white box;
your face stays sticky and
you keep licking your cheeks all day,
even during video calls.

Eventually, you send
a dozen mouths
to extract me,
drip by drop,
while you lie back
and wait to be fed.


Andrew K. Clark is a writer from Asheville, NC. His full-length collection of poetry, Jesus in the Trailer, was published by Main Street Rag Press and was short-listed for the Able Muse Book Award. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in The American Journal of Poetry, UCLA’s Out of Anonymity, Appalachian Review, Rappahannock Review, Fall Lines, The Wrath-Bearing Tree, and NO:1 journals, among others. He is the recipient of the Georgia Southern University Roy F. Powell Award and received his MFA from Converse College. He is searching for a home for his first novel. Connect with him at andrewkclark.com

Fall 2023