ouch!

Being Stung By A Bee on the Lexington Avenue Local by John Hollander Ouch! etcetera Aside, and then likewise the Conclusion that I Had indeed not been Stabbed in the left shoulder with A knitting needle By some demented Wretch whose misery I'd be Momentarily Too angry to spare Any real sympathy for (Though I knew too well Life had undone so Many) sitting in the jammed Car heading uptown Through the acutely Nonrural subway tunnel: Said conclusion drawn From a subsequent Nonmechanical humming In my ear accompanied By an actual glimpse Of the creature who would not Live long buzzing off, As it were and as A matter of fact as well— What some idiot Of the literal Might mean by rus in urbe... All of those aside, It was only weeks After that I realized That the very (most Nonliteral) point Of the sting was that the thought Buzzed through my mind some Days later that I Was as one who, once stung by A gold-banded Bee in a fable, Might have thereupon acquired As a gift—not from Apollo himself, But from one of his nine girls— A peculiar kind Of wisdom: but of Which sort, and from which of them— Which of the Muses— Let alone what tied That bunch to that misplaced bee (Poor lost bee! I had No anger for her As I might have had for the Knitting-needle nut) And what deep cosmic Questions had hung on this I Could not imagine. But although with no Gift nor Muses nor indeed An available Apollo, I would Come to conclude that even The subsequent brief Sting of the sudden Awareness of them and their Moot irrelevance Was as much of a Gift from those nine sisters as Is ever given.