The Sunday Poem: Among the Bees

His grandfather told him, when he was a child,
How he used to bait bees with sugar and steal
Their honey, licking it from smeared fingers
While they strung a line of yellow dots to his trap.

Afterwards when his thumb was swollen
Twice its size, the boy could only remember
A few things—laying the cookie on the grass
      (chocolate chip cookie
      and chocolate has sugar
      else grandfather could eat it
      but he can’t)
And waiting for a bee to reconnoiter,
And the feeling of emptiness
In the shifting darkness,
As feathery legs wandered
On his fingernails and wrist
And he gently prodded back.

      He found no honey.
      Just the wax walls
      And the nurseries of the young
      Nestled in hexagonal rows.
      He cracked open their house.
      He claimed he set them free.