number four

confessional.

the bees are swarming like crazed little cupids,
committing their strange stinging suicides.

i open the window to better their access,
letting my arm fall down over the sill,

my fingers tickling through the leaves and
thorns and blossoms of the tattered rosebush.

dirty children race home down the street,
raising a sandstorm that clouds my history.

i watch a little one, her face shiny with sweat
or tears, stop to pick an itchy scab off her knee.

her bright eyes are everywhere.
i want to call her over, to speak the words

currently caught in my throat. the bees crawl
over my fingers, and i resist the urge to make a fist.

the bees have wisened to the girl's sticky
sweet little fingers, she swats in big circles

around her head, a frantic halo that achieves nothing.
i see her grab her cheek and release a low howl,

setting off at full-speed after the others. my finger
snags on a sharp thorn and i jerk back my betrayed hand,

already swelling and tender, the guilty bees
falling through my fingers to the soft ground below.