They taste dark,
like some-
one else’s
life,
thickening
from
a fleshy pit,
ripe as
harvest day
over bed
sheets.
They hide under
white
buds, collected
like bees
suckling
the inner
walls
of combs,
swollen
in love-
making,
stroking
in late spring.

-Matthew Haughton,
Bee-Coursing Box (2011), Accents Publishing

Matthew Haughton was born in Colorado in 1977. At an early age, his family returned to eastern Kentucky, where his lineage stretches back over a century in the region. Matthew is a graduate of the University of Kentucky. Most recently, he was a finalist in the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning’s Next Great Writer Competition. His poetry has appeared in literary magazines such as Kentucky Monthly, Still: The Journal, and The Heartland Review. This is his first published collection of poems. He lives and works as an artist and educator in Lexington Kentucky.