On:

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

On:

Guiding and gliding as a siren,She is the queen bee of this new eusociality,Is she my Quantic belle? I blush as a drone!Instrumental shapeshifter in the apiary,We acreage all our beekeeping. Safeguarding beehives to serve our queen bee.I blush as a drone!Is she my Quantic belle?She is the newest pleonexia.Continue Reading

On:

The bodies of the dead are carried,massed in their final resting place,laid away from the hive, unburied. This task falls on shoulders wearied—Mahogany boxes, wooden faces.The bodies of our dead are carried. Humans go below ground to be buried.Bees are piled above, in the shade,laid away from the hive, unburied.Continue Reading

On:

“Do you ever feel restless?” Asked the worker of a drone. “Long to live beyond the structuresThe hexagons of honeycombs? Ever feel we’re something more Than antenna twitches And wing flicks And buzzing bands of yellow In vast washes of green Under distant blankets of blue? Away from the queenApartContinue Reading

On:

The bees are laden with pollenthis time of year. I watch themlabor to rise, to carry theirbounty home. No malaise there, no sense of opportunities lost,ninety days doing what they wereborn for, a life fulfilled.Retirement is not part of their contract, of course, never thishammock, never these gin rickeys,never thisContinue Reading

On:

Eloping,I ran back to the fresh beehive,I found solace in those little creatures, I shut down all modalities of modernity.I craved for peace when my heart pulsed. Freshly allied with the horizon,I laughed with the honeybees, Pulsating of thrills,I relapsed in an extinguished breathe, One which I lost on myContinue Reading

On:

came from nowhere, descended in a dark swarm,surrounded the stacked wooden boxes.Zinging hums in heated crescendo—they crawled over the surface, crowding white paintto brown, clustered in combat with our bees,trying to fight their way into the home hive.We stood at the window and watched, helplessto halt the carnage, to saveContinue Reading

On:

Estranged from my family, I was surprised at the call.“Master Anders?” said the voice. There was a distinct buzzing, what might have been electrical interference or perhaps–“Yes? Yes? Hello,” I said. “Yes. This is Anders. Hello?”The voice on the line began a coughing fit. He had covered the receiver withContinue Reading

On:

I discovered the beehive when I was nine. I was playing hide and seek with Rebecca and stumbled across the little nest in the woods that were the boarding house’s yard. It was no bigger than a football when I first found it, the hive barely buzzing with its residents.Continue Reading

On:

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