The Wardrobe's Best Dressed: Panacea by Alison Strub

This selection, chosen by guest editor john compton, is from Panacea by Alison Strub (Milk and Cake Press 2023).

Address to Francesco Redi (excerpt)

II. A beautiful swarm of bees

I did not waste time seeking the bees in the entrails of the decayed bull. The whole carcass was buried,
horns protruding. Later they sawed off the horns and out bees flew. It was not a carcass, but a skeleton
without flesh.

You have put meat near an apiary and the bees, being dainty, would not go near it. The hornets and
wasps carried balls of flesh to their nests. You believe the bee will not eat meat unless forced to by
famine.

Alison Strub is a hybrid poet and visual artist who received her M.F.A. at George Mason University. Her poems have appeared in Gigantic Sequins, Salt Hill, The Seattle Review, Word For/ Word and other fine publications. Her chapbook, Lillian, Fred, was published by BOAAT Press in 2016. Her book, Panacea, was published in 2023 by Milk & Cake Press and her next book, Dust Rites, is forthcoming from Milk & Cake Press in 2026. She can be reached by telegrams and texts.

john compton (b. 1987) is a gay poet who lives in kentucky with his husband josh and their dogs, cats and mice. his latest full length book is my husband holds my hand because i may drift away & be lost forever in the vortex of a crowded store published with Flowersong Press (dec 2024); his latest chapbook is melancholy arcadia published with Harbor Editions (april 2024).