Justin Philip Reed - About The Bees

I do think of them

from time to time—

just now sucking the pulp

 

of a tangerine

the taste of which

is mostly texture,

 

in this spin-drunk season

that seems to forget

—us. —itself.

 

At the job I lost,

their husk carcasses

with the locust bean’s

 

cracked brown pods

rustled on the brick steps

leading into the white-walled

 

hours of computer screen;

their compressed toil

missing from the hives

 

they left agape in the backyard

of the next-door neighbor

who, recently divorced,

 

had brought u...