Frank Huyler

[Frank Huyler, published by The Atlantic Monthly, 08/95]

Moving the Hive

The queens sleeps in my palm
through the forest.

Her workers are dark ribbons
that follow us

asking one thing.
Lethergolethergolethergo.

They are black wool
covering my hands.

I wear them as a field
wears dust in the dry summer.

I wear them as the river
wears its speed.

Their wings—
I hear them as a house

closed for the season
hears its last voice.

When I release her
and she stumbles

to the new cells
it is the future

I lock her in, another
meadow where again

bees fall like fire
on the exposed flowers.