The Honey Bear

By Eileen Myles Eileen Myles

Billie Holiday was on the radio

I was standing in the kitchen

smoking my cigarette of this

pack I plan to finish tonight

last night of smoking youth.

I made a cup of this funny

kind of tea I’ve had hanging

around. A little too sweet

an odd mix. My only impulse

was to make it sweeter.

Ivy Anderson was singing

pretty late tonight

in my very bright kitchen.

I’m standing by the tub

feeling a little older

nearly thirty in my very

bright kitchen tonight.

I’m not a bad looking woman

I suppose O it’s very quiet

in my kitchen tonight I’m squeezing

this plastic honey bear a noodle

of honey dripping into the odd sweet

tea. It’s pretty late

Honey bear’s cover was loose

and somehow honey dripping down

the bear’s face catching

in the crevices beneath

the bear’s eyes O very sad and sweet

I’m standing in my kitchen O honey

I’m staring at the honey bear’s face.

Source: Maxfield Parrish: Early & New Poems (Black Sparrow Press, 1995)

Biography

Eileen Myles was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1949, was educated in Catholic schools, graduated from the University of Massachusetts-Boston in 1971, and moved to New York City in 1974 to be a poet. She gave her first reading at CBGB's, and then gravitated to St. Mark's church where she studied with Ted Berrigan, Alice Notley and Bill Zavatsky. She has published more than a dozen volumes of poetry and fiction including Not . . .

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