Photo by v2osk via Unsplash

Falling Asleep with Carpenter Bees

The walls are thin, transparent.
Angels stand at right angles.
I close my eyes to see the bees
breaking and entering. Honeycomb
dipped in sorrow. Eyeballs
rolling like grapes on my palm.
I see a handful of pennies fallen
through the grate. Shallow sludge,
the refuse of a city feigning sleep.

Locally, it’s sunset. Unlaced
thoughts burst out of their shoes.
Every moment, the scrap
of a dream flies into a barrel
of laughs, rolling downhill.
It crushes everything in its path.
This is the time to bend matter
to thought. Simpler if all I had
were dusty yarn on a broken loom.

You, who whisper. There, in the corner.
Approach me invisibly on high heels.
Barefoot, even. Just be. Here,
next to me. I want to forget this place
where joy is a three-day cold
and sadness the flu. Here’s a look
at what’s no longer possible. Words
without fear. Anger without loss.
In their wake, dreaming becomes obsolete.

Quit staring, we say, keep walking,
hold on to your children. So many
won’t make it. We know
and feel deeply, while dodging
the ghost of tomorrow.
You see, it, too, needs a pass
to travel. Not linearly, but hopping
from town to town, hoping
someone would take it in.
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First published in Cagibi, Issue 6, April 2019