

Piece human, piece hornet, the fury

of both, astonishing abs all over it.

Ripped, just ripped to absolute bits,

his head in the hornet and his head

in the hum, and oh he want to sting

her. The air he breathes is filled

with flying cheerleader parts. Splits

flips and splits, and ponytails in orbit,

the calm eye of the panty in the center

of the cartwheel, the word HORNETS

—how?—flying off the white uniform.

Cheerleaders are a whole, are known

to disassemble in the middle of the air

and come back down with different

thighs, necks from other girls, a lean

gold torso of Amber-Ray on a bubbling

bottom half of Brooke. The mouths that

cry GOOD HANDS GOOD HANDS.

The arms he loves that make the basket,

the body he loves that drops neat

into them.

Oh the hybrid human and hornet, who

would aim for pink balloons.

Oh the swarm of Cheerleading Entity,

who with their hivemind understand

him. Rhyme about the hornet, her tongue

in her mouth at the top of her throat! Clap

one girl’s hand against another’s. Even

exchange screams in the air.

The pom-poms, fact, are flesh. Hornet

Mascot is hungry, and rubs his abs, where

the hornet meets the man. Wants to eat

and hurl a honey, in the middle

of the air. (No that is bees I’m thinking of.

Like I ever went to class, when the show

was all outside.) The hornet begins to fly

toward the cheerleaders. “Make me

the point of your pyramid,” he breathes.

And they take him up in the air with them

and mix-and-match his parts with theirs,

and all come down with one gold stripe,

and come down sharp and stunned,

and lie on the ground a minute, all think-

ing am I dead yet, where am I, did we win.

