After Salvador Dali’s “Sueno causado par el vuelo de una Abeja,” 1944

Dali’s goddess of fecundity floats
On the rock of nudity like a pomegranate
Bursting open with lucent crimson seeds.
She is dreaming of Bernini’s celestial elephant,
Levitating between Dali’s earth and the cerulean sky
On the lithe arachnid legs of her own wishful memory.
Now a bee buzzes inside the canvas:
A pomegranate spawns an orange fish
That begets a predatory feline suspended
In mid-air. With drawn-out claws, a tiger
Leaps towards her and touches her arm
With the surrealist painter’s phallic bayonet.
Yet, still sleeping, she dreams of Bernini’s Obelisk –
The emblem of Dali’s inspiration, his solar libido
To which she’ll respond when the bee stings her breasts.