The bee man removes bees at night
when they’re home from foraging.
Dark is a hive filled with sleeping bees,
carried unawares through the streets,
as bats’ echoes locate between trees,
and children are sent to bed to dream.
Father, please take the bees in my head,
and put them where they cannot sting me.
I want rose petal thoughts, unfurling soft
as the dove confessing his love from the branch,
not these guilty questions with no answers,
that steal my nectar and flit away.
The beekeeper brings his fragrant smoke,
drugs the drones unconscious.
So careful, he carries the fecund queen,
brooding ruler, who must not be harmed,
and her courtiers, their spears laid down.
As if caught in honeycomb, I wait for absolution,
the absence of bees, such sweet taboo.
