The Bees
Already in August the bees
had gone to ground,
burrowing for rain.
Already we knew
many things of winter,
the frozen doorsteps,
the slush on Third Street.
The mower’s blade,
unsharpened since my father’s death,
startled two who rose and stung—
the light of pain, the annoying
thought that I was wrong—
being there, a blaze
of flesh, a man.
We have our flannel
and our heated rooms,
hot water and the hour of sleep
before we leap
into the day, things to fracture
and collect, things to heed.
The bees are still, memorial,
the winds of Illinois
only they can hear.
Already they knew
in August the squalls of snow
off Lake Erie, the dents
men make
as they perfect the land.
Carl Boon lives in Izmir, Turkey, where he teaches courses in American culture and literature at 9 Eylül University. His poems appear in dozens of magazines, most recently Burnt Pine, Two Peach, Lunch Ticket, and Poetry Quarterly. He is also a 2016 Pushcart Prize nominee.