The Story of Her Arrival
It has to be one of the gloomiest human characteristicsto wish for something from the pastto return again: So when my girl callsand says she wants her first room back,the one that gurgled and swayed, suspending herin that gravity-free chamber of my bodyI say .I’m out in the garden, with bees fromDrones who are male inseminate the queen then drop dead,a queen who stores the sperm for her lifetime,and the workers who are all female.These bees don’t mate like other insects,not like the grasshoppers on the stucco wall the other morningthe big on top of the small, legs wrapping and unwrapping around thoraxesbodies shaking—not shaking—then shaking again.These creatures were at it for hours, believe me, I kept going to check;So when my girl says she wants back inI tell her to go get laid., I ask,
