What the Girl Would Say on the Arrival of the Bees -
I do not keep bees,
Rather, they keep me then,
Sometimes, on their own,
Sometimes in groups,
On transparent wing
and velvet body,
They leap at will,
Drinking around the edges
of a small pond,
Chasing, rolling in
the just opened Celandine,
Full of nectar color and sticky
Landing - my bare arm a preferred
perch for a time, leg dance, touch heat,
Then my hair – a shiny dark ghost,
blanket of rest and hiding,
sugar map terrain,
bees walking across bees, walking
across me,
Then to in-flight vibration,
hollow veined wing,
heavier body, red tongued
path from point to hive,
thought in a swaddling of
close, closer sound and curl,
They are in dream, swarm,
In a mass of golden flicker condensed,
The weight of all their promises unleashed.
©2016, M. R. Baird