The Honey Alone

The Honey Alone
Jonathan Moya 


The girl watches 
the honeybees lick  
her ribs, inner arms, thighs,

flesh points where 
sweetness, skin and sweat congeal,
soft areas where a bee’s death can mix with tears.        

The sun’s glare forces her to tilt her head,
track their shadows on the shed!s wall.

A red key, 
a pink gum wrapper, 
a snapped No. 2 pencil 
fall from her pockets, 
are lost in the light,
the sight and sound of the swarm.

She recognizes some of
the units in the bee chain
waddling in the nearby 
crabgrass and on her:
the sweetness collectors,
sting carriers,
hexagon builders,
readers of patterned twigs,
all cataloged 
on the curling poster 
tacked to 
the red shed’s fading wood.

And just as quickly 
she loses track 
of their record,
sees them disappear,
their sweetness 
fall off her body 
into the lawn’s darkness,
back to that white, wooden structure.  

Only the croak of frogs
in the creek beyond, 
the last crack of thunder
thinning from the black clouds
passing by 
can be heard,

She wipes 
the moisture 
from her face,
watches  
the swarm go back to
producing the substance
her father would jar
and she 
will never open.