beekeeper’s apprentice
by Jasmine Templethe hands me the yellow suit
all warm from the last girl
the scratchy pants
the puffedpopcorn maskhandle the bees he says
they hardly ever stingwe build a wall of beehives
around the city
dirty white clear yellow
the sound of humming surrounds ushe tells me to steal the sticky
they won’t miss it he says
I know they do
my hands reach into the caverns
scraping their prize into
large blue plastic bucketsI ignore the sting
the honey is too sweet
Three Bees by Brenda Tate
Photograph
