Winter 2003
	Susan Settlemyre Williams
	BOY PURSUED
	A casual traffic of classmates or hornets   thick little bodies the pebble seemed random when
	I threw it   I didn't know how the circling finds a target   but the bodies made one
	body   hot noise sawing in one throat and I was running or I was running again and the roar behind me was the rocks
	or the stingers and my blind feet drumbeat the path I was struck or I was struck again
	stung and down into the creek swinging the white flag of my screams   the last rock opened my cheek and mossy
	water ran over my swollen eyes the hornet in my shirt kept stinging a long time for the surfacing there is no word
	but silence   swarm unforming separate boys with open fingers following the teacher away   hornets
	dwindling into air   and I was left lumped on the bank like mud odd how that afterwards has no echo
	no or   one stumble home weighted with my tears the puffy cheek hot throb under my ribs   my clothes
	creased brown with creekwater because some of this is a story I think I'm remembering and not   to tell myself
	about the hornets   who would have chased me again but instead burrowed into sleep in the one
	body of the nest and sucked the spray I shot over them like a hush of fire in the middle of the night.