Poultice

Her little boy bee-stung, yelping,
she’d tap a cigarette from her pack

and peel back its flimsy paper
with a long chipped pinkie nail

then pinch some loosened tobacco
into her mouth, a dainty plug

she chewed just until it was wet,
gently lifting out with her tongue

a cud, a brownish wad, a gob
she plastered to his swelling bite

and spread until the red was hidden,
telling her sobbing son, “Don’t touch,”

its unlit darkness drawing out the fire,
its poison cancelling the angry bee’s.

* Michael McFee's seventh collection of poetry, Shinemaster, was published in January by Carnegie Mellon University Press, publisher of his previous books Earthly (2001) and Colander (1996). His book of prose The Napkin Manuscripts: Selected Essays and an Interview is forthcoming from the University of Tennessee Press this September. New poems have appeared recently in Cincinnati Review, Threepenny Review, Harper's Magazine, Hudson Review, Southern Review, and Cornbread Nation 3: Foods of the Mountain South (University of North Carolina Press).