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Nurse bees are a special breed of workershatched by some unknown alchemyinto nurturing roles. They feed the needybees’ bread, honey and pollen mixedwith royal jelly secreted by their own bodies.Nurses visit often, examinelarvae deprived of food, give moreto those who signal the most distress. Nurse sisters. Duty-bound by natureto sweetenContinue Reading

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The Scene: A small Bavarian town in the Georgian EraThe Players:Georgina, the youngest sisterPhillipa, the middle sisterFredericka, the oldest sisterThe Ants of a HillSome DucksA Hive of Bees and their QueenThree prince brothers, who all looked exactly alike Phillipa and Edwina laid on a blanket in a field overlooking theContinue Reading

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I’m sitting on the porch.—Bees out of nowhere,the UPS guy says, “It’s a swarm, scary.” First I heard them, a loud rubbing enginedusting the sky like a sunlit orb or a dark bubble lifted out of string and rubber without the oily chrome.Only blondish density, and fear, imagining I wasContinue 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

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Can you stay late today?We really need to play catch-up. It’s not more responsibility,It’s just a shift in duties. I wanted to be in the movies,That didn’t happen. Then I wanted to be behind the camera,That never happened. I thought I could write about it,Who cares? I want to beContinue Reading

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I regret that I spent most of our yearstogether—over twenty-five—keeping scoreon a chalkboard, carefully recording each errorhe’s ever made. He earned the most markswhen he raged unfairly against our son—& I tallied with a heavy hand the coldcriticisms of my body. Callous, cruel.I knew as soon as the page filled,Continue Reading

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Cuppediatoris1 voce coloribusque bomboque corporis cum Helena paene defigebatur2, exsultationi tamen repugnabat. Monstrum erat sub ostentatione venustā, cuius nidus novacularum cruore madefactus in pedibus Helenae iacebat. Dubitet fauces eius incidere, si manum ei iniecit3? Duobus Helenae hunc horrorem spectantis cordis palpitationibus4, Cuppediator lodicem exuit.Cum fugere ex sinibus nitebatur, iacca diloricabaturContinue Reading

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The silhouette of a ridgehalf-clouded by morning fogmakes me think of scorched grass in early fallhemmed by leaves turning so fastI can watch them redden, change like corn or bamboo,——the mind toowatching white-blossomed oregano, bees, flying ants, a moth,it’s only when they’ve all flown offthat the signs of endings becomeContinue Reading

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Honey never goes bad. My husband always bought bear shaped honey. He called me Honey, or Hun when he was looking over the paper wanting my opinion—the one that agreed with his. I prefer jars. When the honey solidifies, dense enough to be hung from a chain like amber, it’sContinue Reading

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I suppose there must be a godto do with this blue-green earthwhen I am reluctant enoughto consider the bees When I am reluctant enoughto consider the selfless bees,kept and unkept,I think of something more than us Something more than you and I,weaving mystery into secret,like they doturning flowers to wineContinue Reading