Bees loved her deeply, dancing in swarming synchronicity around her body. They taught her how to hum. I’d watch, mesmerized, as she gingerly dipped her arm into the sticky palpitating mass of a natural nest, the bees forming her second skin. And the queen bee—a young queen of the free bees—sang to Dee, a serenading like the gentle berceuse of a kazoo, an unparalleled honor, really. I believe the hive thrummed inside her, and it was these connections to the natural world that kept her afloat. She’d lick their honey off her forearms, the sky’s dusky powdering of pink illuminating her sly smile.
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