The anatomy of a bee sting is blue lipped.
High noon sky in agony, an abundance
of heat. Light cuts ridges into the cement
shade. This is not about the bees, disemboweled
and writhing. In the morning, their husks
will spike the dirt, their entrails wind
into roads that mimic dry rivers in juniper shade.
These bodies are grief like a moon in ink: round,
placental. Grown from the holes birth leaves
in a waxen womb. Abdominal curves as crescent in flight,
a dagger, a comma in splice. Sometimes a hum.
Like stones, where stones are casualties and also
floral. What remains laid out as jewels, their glow
sacrificial at least: most at your own expense.