Swarm

by Jehanne Dubrow

 

Years after I left, the bees began
to build in the places I used to fill
with the syrup of my anger—
ten thousand bees performing
their gold hexagonal work
in the highest rooms, until the heat
of that autumn pushed them out.
They died on the stairs. They battered
against the glistening narrative
of a stained-glass window.
From the floor below, one could hear
the uncanny beating of bodies,
how like a sullen murmuring
those wings. Honey dripped
from the walls like a dream of plenty.
When even the stinger is protected,
how to rid oneself of such buzzing?
Search for holes. Seal the entry-points.
Choke the corners with smoke.
And still the bees wouldn’t go.
Something admirable in staying—
reflective facets of their eyes,
furred tongue to suck the nectar,
these droning specks, these moving
clouds of fury closing in.

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JEHANNE DUBROW is the author of seven poetry collections, including most recently American Samizdat (Diode Editions, 2019), and a book of creative nonfiction, Throughsmoke: An Essay in Notes (New Rivers Press, 2019). Her eighth collection of poems, Simple Machines, won the Richard Wilbur Poetry Award and will be published by the University of Evansville Press at the end of 2019. Her work has appeared in Virginia Quarterly Review, Pleiades, and The Southern Review. She is a Professor of Creative Writing at the University of North Texas.