HONEY BEE

We listen

as it raps and

stumbles into the kitchen

lamps, lamps that look like

wide open tulips with round

metal petals and lit bulb centers.

The hive is outside, up on the roof

of the house beside the chalky brick

chimney. There is no hive inside this house,

no waxen globes strung from ceiling beams,

no stamens, no pollen, no pistils, no queens, no bees,
only houseplants and wall paint, three people, a dog,

fabricated fibers, leggy spiders, foreign fruit, paper flowers,
air, wood and the maps we draw daily with ink, skin,

hair, crumbs, crayons, sound

                                           and shadow.

So how long now before he becomes another

body bent beside the window glass,

dry and light as a brown leaf,
still and stuck as a stone,

empty of life and of
honey?