R K Fauth

Small Talk

The honeybee bucks her dark density into a hard portrait of sky.
Blip of silence like a rip in the day, then the buzzing comes
& she rams again. Tell me—is there any window that isn’t,
by nature, cruel? Panorama. Horizon. Vista—dollar store
words, blanched and tasting of paper, meant for
breaking. Once, I was given the frayed end of a pink ribbon
& told to let it go at the first feel of slippage. This—
I was promised, by an ill-trained therapist—
would tell me something. About what? My bristles? About how I love?
Are you ready for the performance? is the appropriate question
posed to a symphonist. But—Is your heart
a thousand yellow finches? slips the unusual
text message, bucking its dark density into a hard portrait of sky.

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R K Fauth is the author of A Dream in Which I Am Playing with Bees, winner of the Walt MacDonald First Book Prize in Poetry (Texas Tech University Press, 2024) and finalist for the Audre Lorde Prize in Poetry. Her writing has appeared in POETRY Magazine, Poem-a-Day, AGNI, The West Trade Review, Plumwood Mountain Journal and elsewhere. Fauth's work has been supported by the Academy of American Poets, The Fulbright Program, Art Omi, The Oak Spring Garden Foundation and The Lannan Center for Poetics and Social Practice. She lives in New York City.