Monday, June 10, 2019

Bee Keeping in Lincoln Heights



I wake early and naked to the heat and the work
of killing tomatoes to spite the aphids
only who knows what will
happen to the bees.

Surely there are bees
in this urban garden on my balcony
six floors above the urine, shit and garbage
above spindly, barren trees.

I can’t stop now; the war is on. It is on
and on, like aphids on balconies
and doom on the horizon for tomatoes
and maybe bees.

They can handle the heat but the dirt
will grind them down,
the weight of exhaled sighs and the air
thick with the pollen of 18-wheeled jake brakes
and the honeycombed memory of microparticles.

I see unlikely movement on the tomato leaves
even so, I lean in with the spray bottle
hoping to see a bee.

2 comments: