(no subject)

Like a secret that fell with the rain the new season arrived, and we moved to another town just as the bees kicked up. There had been none when we selected the tiny house from its row of tiny houses, but now they seemed to live in or on or under every panel or plank of the shed and porch and patio. We thought they were more than one kind, mostly for sometimes sounding different, but also to account for strange discrepancies of shape and size. They seemed as unbalanced and gravity-grudging as crumbs. When the largest and smallest flew near one another they seemed like cousin coffee grounds painted and mounted with radio controlled flight gear by someone demented. Bees don't fly like others do. They're steady. In some language one must say "Steady like a bee." Watching, some part of you wonders if they're still and you're just part of what pivots around them, which combines with their buzz and their sting threat to cause that slight vertigo. That more than anything stopped our home from taking in that house. We weren't stung, but a loose board over some satellite nest or meeting spot had it in for our poor mailwoman. We heard her motherfuckers. She switched routes, or had perhaps been a replacement. We ate outdoors and they always expressed interest but never quite landed on food. It's like they were waiting for better. And then they all died.

Their hives weigh much less than you think. We collected four and arranged them on the front steps when we moved on. They looked evicted. Waiting for a bus. Or for us to be gone.