Personal Account Of Bees Poem by Bernard Henrie

Scholarly bees who attend college and graduate with high marks
go to dewy clover fields wet enough to prevent a scalded mouth,
dull bees are sent to Cleveland, to my house, and others nearby
where the gardens are limp green, plants like washed dollar bills
passed from hand to hand by men who work on production lines.

The local bees carouse, turnout pockets to purchase a good time,
sprawl, their legs open like girls taking sun the first day of summer.
I never see them eat from their tiny black lunch boxes, they hum
like choir boys, overshoot runways that are like ours, but round.
The bees are colorblind, deaf and they do not like blue Windex.

Arriving home exhausted they play card games before quarreling
or canning honey preserves, later they slip down striped underpants
and rest placing bald heads, shiny as the day they were born,
on paws tangled with paws of brothers who do not seem to mind,
they sleep no longer than it takes for a rain drop to fall from heaven.