Between the Boy and the Bees

1.

Is this going to be one of those days?
Everything reminds me of you,

the Honeybear,
the radio buzzing out of tune,

the cranefly on the windowsill,
back legs crushed:
useless and dangling.


2.

Our Mother's voice,
cracking with static electricity
jolts the sleep right out of me.

Last night it got too hard for you
to breathe,
and they took you in an ambulance.
"Infection. Complications. Tests."
Of what things she said
that's all I heard.

Now my own breath catches
and I wait for words to see,
if, with the coming weeks
you will vanish, like the bees.


3.

On Monday you called to say,
"Melissa,
all the honeybees are leaving."

The use of my true name
sent a shiver straight
through my skin.

In my legs, a hum
like a hundred
thousand pairs
of missing wings.

"Dying," I said,
thick and low, but
"No. Just disappearing."

You told me the mystery.
Abandoned hives, still and empty,
no predators nearby,
no poisons, parasites,
no bodies.
I told you it worried me.

Your reply stretched like golden glass,
a sparkling amber about to smash.
"I'm not worried for the bees,
just for human beings, maybe.
What will we do if they all go?
What do bees know
that we don't?"

Translucent words
too bright with wonder,
so sun-kissed sweet they
made me shudder.
If the bees come back,
will you get better?

4.

The wounded cranefly at the window
dances up the glass,
legs swinging in
a broken jig.

I stir my coffee with cream and honey.
You've been eating Royal Jelly,
pollen, honeycomb and nectar.

It gives you strange dreams
but they say it's good medicine.

I dream of you going away with them.
I dream of your back
split open with wings.


5.

This is one of those days.
Everything reminds me of you.

On my cafe table,
on my lunch break,
an arrangement of sunflowers
poses for a picture.

One droops dying,
seeds swollen,
petals wilted.

The other,
yellow corona bursting in
full bloom,
attracts a dusty bumblebee,

6 legs strong
and fat with pollen.

Don't You Take That Train to Negative Town!

For a while, there was sweetness. He's always thinking about me. 

Sex in the morning, Valentine's candy. 

Red roses blooming in the Bluecoat bottle. 

Could I be one of these people? 

Grow into love like a crocus through the snow.

For a moment, I think it. 

But oh! 

All the girls, their long legs in stockings, 

high-heeled shoes, lingerie shopping, 

long dark curls across white hotel pillows. 

Men with worn hands 

and wide, boyish smiles, 

door holding at grocery stores 

long looks across Christmas lit parties. 

Musicians I'm always crushing on, 

the one it's not impossible 

will one day kiss me under fireworks. 

long fingers tracing my iliac crests.

Twenty-two year-olds with close-shaved heads 

The faces they make to look sexy in pictures. 

Boys and the smoke, the bars and the drugs, 

Trains, and crashing in anyone's bed, 

kissing a stranger for the poetry of it, 

going to sleep alone, and happy.

All this beauty and potential 

build a river between us

I cannot bridge,

he will not swim across.

Winter Marches Mercilessly On

Snow is inconvenient. Cold without snow is stupid. I miss California.

Piled under blankets, wrapped around a mug of tea, watching the pearly grey light strain against my kitchen windows. Watching the plants in the kitchen strain starving towards the light. 

If I close my eyes, I can see Cali, the impossibly tall Palms arched across the radiant sky. A softer winter sky, without the scrubbing summer dust. The magenta bougainvillea leaves trailing in the pool, lazy lounging hearts. Thick date clusters hanging over the garden wall and the oleander in the corners, around the rocks where the lizards sun themselves. I can see Cali, but I can't smell it. This house just smells cold, plaster and snow, and the cigarette smoke in my hair from the night before. 

Bears would take one breath and know it was still time to sleep, curled up under piles of leaves and layers of fat and fur. Bears would wait for spring to wake them. Why are humans so intent on staying the same all year round? If I could sleep with the season, I'd be far less grumpy. I would dream of Cali and Mexico, and the hot basking sun of Rome. I would taste the desert sun in my sleep and wake up hungry for summer. 

I wonder what bears dream? Probably honey. 

I would dream of honey too. Sweet sticky ribbons of sunlight, and the summer hum of a billion bees. 

Bees also sleep in the cold. They also know. And who can even guess what bees dream? Bougainvillea and Star Jasmine and Purple Clover and bears.

And I dream of bears and bees chasing me. Laughing.