And then all the bees were dead.

 –Matthew Olzmann

& in the dream, I yelled and yelled

& despair dumped garbage in my body

& that tired compost shoveled itself out

& spread across an abandoned field

& covered the corpse of a woman

& the giving away began

& worms aerated the soil

& castings fertilized her ghost

& she reared from the ground in a swarm

& her new hive-body thrummed

& her brood grew in her hexagonal womb

& chewed through her wax-capped breasts

& dried their wings upon her shoulders

& then all the bees were dancing

MELISSA JOPLIN HIGLEY

Melissa Joplin Higley is the author of First Father (Bottlecap Press) and We Shake & Seek (Origami Poems Project). Her poems have appeared in B_O_D_Y, Crab Orchard Review, and The Penn Review, at the Hudson River Museum, and elsewhere. Melissa co-edits book reviews for MER and serves as the Mamaroneck Poet Laureate. See melissajoplinhigley.com.