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We’ve suited up into our white coveralls, gloves, hard hats, elasticized netting. Tom says he feels like a volunteer firefighter on a last-minute call, pulling on equipment, rushing out the door. My suit is stained with splotches of honey and propolis and old smoker residue. In three years, I’ve neverContinue Reading

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A firstborn sorrow buffers its descendantsIn the same way early bees in a hiveSmear propolis into every crackEncasing the queen in darkness Estée Arts Crenshaw is a doctoral candidate in the department of Writing & Rhetoric Studies at the University of Utah. She received her MFA in creative writing fromContinue Reading

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As it chewsthroughthe nurseryloaves,hatching broodtunnels throughan immaculate darknessimmured withcareful clippings. Its birth intothe light bristleswith a certaintyunknown to uswho wakeinto an opacityso densely vacuousthat we subsiston sifted memories. Estée Arts Crenshaw is a doctoral candidate in the department of Writing & Rhetoric Studies at the University of Utah. She receivedContinue Reading

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You were golden at birth, Ambrose,a swarm of bees settled on your face,leaving behind a single drop of honey. We’ve heard this before, bees landingon the breath of baby Zeus and Bacchus,Virgil and Plato, foretelling sweetness of speech. As sermons drip from your honeyed tongue,we gather nectar, beat our wingsContinue Reading

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Sweet Time Honey’s timeless flowmocks the clock’s imperativetakes its own sweet time On Making Frames The keeping of beesBecomes a carpenter’s affair;tonight, I’ll wash the gluenot the honeyfrom my hair. Solstice Restless, knowing thateven the longest day castsshadows on the hive Mary Salome (she/her) is a queer Arab- and Irish-AmericanContinue Reading

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He the hairy-footed flower beegoes around comes aroundgingery brown buzzes a humover lungworts, dead nettles bumps from his shallow hollow nestto find a mate before he dieswanting a new humthat will wrap him in pollen far from humorous bravadoof wings vibrating the airwhich is what we want:a final hymn unembellishedContinue Reading

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Drink from that honeypot,Let my sorrow dwarf in liquidity… She loves us whilst I try desperately to look for other bees,What a drone’s heart in a male bee! Drink that honeydew,That worker bee loved us still she went to other honeysuckles,She breached you, my heart, with flames of turmeric! IContinue Reading

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Ronnie’s hair had grown flaxen in her old age. It blew and tangled in the breeze as she made it up the hill, wicker basket in one hand as she cupped the space above her brow with the other. One of her bees, a long way from home, crawled alongContinue Reading

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Here is the light he was born intofragile green glowalready in wind and leavesday winding downTo open a tunnel of airTo hover above the cloverhomeless in lovewith the touch of earthTo waver in brush and weedsInvincible flit of flight John Davis is a polio survivor and the author of GigsContinue Reading

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The pollinators sing,and the perennials dance through their short little lifespan. The bridge takes us over the water,And my two little wheels gift me freedomand grant me an overwhelming sense of calm. I wish that nature would take back over, and we could lay downand relinquish the earth unto her.(HerContinue Reading