All day they mumble in a clump
outside the hive.
I water the days of an unexpected life.
I fill my time.
I’m very good at that.
The bees are hot.
The wild, indifferent creatures of our
climate we do our best to kill.
They fan furious air: maintaining a steady
in-hive temperature is hard work.
We all keep busy, I suppose.
Mine is a cluttered life.
Past the choked-out flower border,
the strange of parched plants in pots,
the grass yellow and brittle underfoot.
From the dog or the sun
or both?
It’s always daytime here.
The bees are the only orderly thing but they’re not mine.
Nobody owns bees.
Water carves its own paths. So does time.
So do bees.
Jessica Maybury is an Irish zine maker working on short fiction, poetry and visual art.She lives in Geel, Belgium - find her online at jessicamaybury.com.
Latest posts by Jessica Maybury (see all)
- A PERFECT 35° (Poem), by Jessica Maybury - June 4, 2020