hives

my body is a cartographer
of secret planets i will never see.
each morning,
a mountain ridge.
the path to a dead city.
i love that the word "hives"
for the rashes on my skin
is the same as that 
of a thrumming hornet body.
i run my fingers
across the raised flesh.
never the same. sometimes
a bracelet. sometimes 
just one like an angry lonely star.
my body rejects this world
so it maps others.
says, "here is where 
our treasure is buried."
i take a too-hot shower 
until i am ringing. steam 
filling the room. one map
wiped clean for another.
the flesh, settling back
into its present assignment.
i stake pictures on my more 
curious days.
a book of maps. i have tried
to follow them & i always end up
in parking lots
for places that no longer exist.
i know it is serious
& of course i have
an ointment & of course
i weep when the hives hurt
more than i can bear.
but i am a poet so it 
has to mean something more 
than just skin. there has to be
a symbol beneath 
the flesh or else just a deer path
to a rush of wineberries 
red as my bees 
in the morning dark.