—I DON’T WANT YOU DRINKING ALONE

 

honey bee

 

the bees they cry themselves to sleep at night wiping their snotty faces with parchment-thin wings their compound eye weepy and starch-blue their pollen sack weightless as dust and empty as a promise unfulfilled from god they cuddle the queen when she lets them or else they hug each other tight like long-lost cousins they say a prayer they bahzzzz bahzzzz bazhzzz into each other’s ear a punctuated whisper sweet as the nectar they can no longer find