A bee in the car
by Brent Fisk
Gently on the back of my hand,
it lands, legs like eyelashes
thick with mascara, wings thin
as cellophane.
The spring wind shakes the car.
I lower my window as my wife
does her EEK-a-mouse.
I have lived in the presence of many stingers,
know slow movement will not draw venom.
The bee flies into the backseat,
angry huzz of confinement, small yellow fear
like the flutter in a stomach. It must be all those years
of swallowing it in, the failed flight of a fist,
gentle tremor of a hand.
I pull to the shoulder, wax-cup the bee
to open air. Large trucks throttle down
but barely brake, aftermath of kicked up winter
grit, acrid diesel, thick and blue as the past.