print previewback CARLY JOY MILLER
Soul's Colony
The bees curled dead beside the swimming pool.
Their wings clipped as a straight-stitch seam.
We tiptoed coldly from the water: of course
we hovered: made a colony
over bodies that crawled out of the droplets
of old pool water.
They sense fear, sweat lacquered
and neat on our lips. Tuck
our legs under us now, human land mines, susceptible to sharpness.
The bees curled dead, offered
their deaths to evening, accepted the slowing of day.
Slowness a blessing
on the body’s horizon.
We wish to never waste
the slow pull of lips.
We relish that small silence,
a hot star, fixed station
of revolution.
Yet the bees curl dead:
the dead silence nothing, only expand
our grief: never silence that. Dust along the china,
solid perfume lost of scent
pinpoints their missing—
The bees curled dead. We witnessed some crawl from the droplets,
they fooled
our grievances: in clumps they were
not bees
but stigmas, loose bulbs of pollen
and they were dancing
ghosting the air
with a last bit of sun.
This is the body: take it or not. Yes: the body falls: of course: we are meant for dents:
of course: we shiver in grief: of course: try to shake up some glimmer of light: turn ourselves loose on the wind
and we fear
of course we should—
prayer spits out of our lips and we send it skyward,
knock on the gray doors of our lives:
Grief finds company with the lives
we tender. 
Nightshift as a Waitress: When the Regular Arrives
Soul's Colony