Malpractice by Dean Young

"If you watch a bee close enough you might see it singing to itself"

Malpractice

by Dean Young

Nothing ever comes back. Not
the wave to the sea.
Not the syrup to the seashell.
But there’s nothing wrong with
a blue exploding star becoming the mind drifting
off through the description
of someone else’s surgery only to wake
with a new speculum sewn inside, impalas
in the pantry and a votive flicker
for a best friend. Poetry often affects a reader in
odd ways. If you watch a bee
close enough you might see it singing to
itself with no intention whatsoever of
suicide. But things happen.
They wouldn’t be things if they didn’t.
And not always fluffy floaty things.
Just because there’s no right answer doesn’t
mean you’re not wrong.
The sharpness of any knife is mostly
inclination. Wild hypnagogic berries grow
by the shore where desolate angels
may pour foundations, and demons design
the curriculum, and anyone who doesn’t know
they’re at the beck of strange mighty forces isn’t
eating in the same restaurants I am.
Watch yourself. This ain’t the shallow end.

Forthcoming in Creature Feature (Copper Canyon Press, 2026)