INFESTATION

by Kate Bernadette Benedict


Seems there’s a bee.  

Bees.
Seems there’s a siege of bees, 

indoors, in cubes, in corridors,

beleaguering employees.

Seems there’s shadow on the air,

Africanized bees, 
diffusing something:
pollen, pods or seeds. 
Windows swarm—

murk and writhing.

Duck and cover.  
Freeze.

Seems there’s a breeze.

Bees in thousands.

Thousand thousand bees.




Kate Bernadette Benedict edits Umbrella: A Journal of Poetry and Kindred Prose and Tilt-a-Whirl: A Poetry Sporadical of Repeating Forms.  Her poetry collections are Here from Away (CW Books, 2003) and In Company, scheduled for publication in 2011.
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