The Cost of Closeness
It’s hard to tell if they’re playing tag,
or thrusting nectar-drunk love at each other—
mid-June attempts at getting it.
Maybe they’re fighting over first flowers—
legs twitching in hypoglycemic half-paralysis,
like the buzz of waking mid-vacation,
still dazed, muscles aching, but that stinger,
coiled stiff for the week.
Their terror-tails would end me,
or at least suspend me, breath held between
here and wherever histamine takes it.
I appreciate the bees, I really do,
their work, their faith in growing things.
But the anaphylactic risk of their existence
in relation to mine turns close proximity
into a kill-or-die situation:
all stabs and fury, and neither of us
wanting it to end that way.
Copyright © Jaymee Thomas | Year Posted 2025
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