Flight of the Bumblebee

It’s 1PM on a Sunday.

She crawls into bed and

meets me in my place of

serenity.

We watch the dust motes

dance in the afternoon light.

Her body

affixes to mine;

The trunk of my body serves

As the frame for her hive.

Her mind is tense.

The buzzing of her anxiety

Shakes her body.

She’s thinking again.

Thinking,

for her,

Isn’t a bad thing.

She is an artist,

capable of matchmaking one man’s thoughts

and marrying them to the laws

of gravity.

But,

for her,

it isn’t a good thing either.

In this moment her thoughts are

an angry langstroth.

The anxious bees,

high on alarm pheromones,

swarm between her ears;

They sting her shoulders;

They nip her toes.

My arms curl around her.

I put smoke in my voice:

so light that it floats between the hexagons,

sticky with complex thought,

and warm enough that it renders the hive

defenseless.

Some of the bees fall asleep.

Others float away

Drunk,

Drowsy,

and never to return.

Hard wax gives way

to saccharine gold.

It is viscous to the touch,

and crystallizes around us.

(It will crack

and crumble

when she is ready.)