Maxine Scates

THE ROT WHICH TURNS TO HONEY

So much takes place in darkness, the honey
heavy in the comb, sold by the pound,

but the bees, lost or dying, are not returning
home. Virgil believed he knew the secret

of a new hive–for the sake of sweetness,
sacrifice a young bullock then bees would rise

as it decayed. At night there are so many pieces
of a self, one is a storm coming in, sun

suddenly gone, one is a child walking down
the street to school, another cows behind

barbed wire, no bullocks, Jersey cows ballooning
like cartoons, another bones swarming with maggots

in a garbage can. Let’s say each piece is a flower
where the bees seek nectar, following a path

we can’t predict, some overlooked, others
turning to story as nectar turns to honey

when fanned by the thousand wings we call
awakening. The dog is honey colored.

She has three legs, the missing leg was cancerous.
She wants the meadow she has always known,

muddy in mid-winter, tangled with blackberry
and nootka rose. She wants the thorn in her paw,

the thorn the bee flies past and in late spring
some do die, forgotten, nestled within the blossom,

dead from pleasure. The dog has found the pond
and the robin. At night she stares into darkness.

She wears no collar, she has no name, she roams
with other dogs when we are drawn to fire glowing

amber as a gleaming pound of honey in a jar; the jar
is time but like the bee she lives outside of what

we’d wish to stop. Look at her happiness
in the meadow, consider what is honey, what is not.