Honeybee

HONEYBEE

You keep finding dead bees on the

sidewalk. Their stingers stuck

somewhere far from where you stand,

you’re surprised to discover them still

quite capable of inflicting a subtle

damage, a kind of reverse sting: the

spiny point has been lodged inside all

along, it only took a tiny death to

extract it, to pull the swivel backward,

to percolate midnight’s pain through

morning’s pores. The cruel thing isn’t

the remembering, but the way you

collect bowls of stingers to take home

for breakfast. They poke new holes in

your throat on their way down, sore

and pink and bleeding. You still count

this as success.