Sweet Pretty

Sweet pretty the bees buzz beside me

they nuzzle but they don’t sting.

Have you ever felt a hundred

live velvet bodies yearning and twisting

through you to get to the queen?

A galaxy of eyes. Perhaps, yes.

Insect eyes know that every star is looking back at you

but not every gaze can be turned into a door,

some are always tunnels and will always go underground

while other eyes send you sideways

leave you shimmying towards the edge of the world.

There is a skinny, velveteen edge,

it’s not possible to see it without falling. Every eye that sees the edge

gets the look turned back on itself: click:

now the lock, click, the next time the door opens

there will be only sky past the threshold

and all thresholds dissolve, no matter how you scream.

So try not to scream

and don’t write macabre notes or poetry,

sweet, pretty and sad.

It doesn’t matter what you do, actually

they will always say you jumped.

Perhaps, yes. Perhaps you did.