Statuary

 

Bees may be trusted, always,

to discover the best, nay, the only

 

human, solution. Let me cite

 

an instance; an event, that,

 

though occurring in nature, is still

in itself wholly abnormal. I refer

 

to the manner in which the bees

 

will dispose of a mouse

    or a slug

 

that may happen to have found its way

into the hive.

 

The intruder killed,

 

they have to deal with

the body,

 

which will very soon poison

 

their dwelling. If it be impossible

 

for them to expel or dismember it,

they will proceed methodically

 

& hermetically

 

to enclose it in a veritable sepulcher

of propolis & wax,

 

which will tower fantastically

 

above the ordinary monuments

of the city.

 

 

*

 

When we die

our bodies powder, our bodies

 

the vessel & the vessel

empties.

 

Our dying does not fill

the hive with the stench

 

of dying. But outside

the world hungers.

 

A cockroach, stung,

can be dragged back out.

 

A careless child

 

forced a snail inside with a stick once.

We waxed over the orifice of its shell

 

sealing the creature in. And here,

 

the bottom of the comb,

a mouse,

driven in by winter & lack.

 

Its pawing woke us. We stung it

 

dead.

 

Even before it died it reeked - worse

the moment it ceased

twitching.

 

   Now everyday

we crawl over it

to pass outside,

 

the wax form of what was

 

staring out, its airless sleep,

 

the mouse we built

to warn the rest from us.