The Beekeeper by Bruce Cohen

After the pink blossoms surrender & parachute,
Thousands of thumbnail size peaches overpopulate the branches.

I know they will naturally thin with the first harsh rain.
In early July, when the fruit is the size of the tumor

That killed my mother, the deer maliciously sample
A solitary nibble from almost every peach,

As though taking a biopsy for ripeness.
I’m reminded sweetness should not be monopolized

By any singular living organism. I’m charmed
By thumbnail size Hummingbirds & Honeybees

Pollenating my lemon balm & tarragon.
My neighbor, an amateur beekeeper, tells me,

While we collect our mail & newspapers,
Those bees in my culinary herb garden belong only to him.

He asks if I want to hear something amazing
& I blurt out of course.

His Queen, somehow, became trapped inside his Suburu
& the unified colony swarmed the entire car,

So, he could only see the car’s shape in a configuration
Of thousands of bees. He asks if I’d like a jar or two of honey.

Bruce Cohen’s poems have appeared recently in AGNI, The Alaska Quarterly Review, The Gettysburg Review, The Harvard Review, The New Yorker, Ploughshares, The Pushcart Prize 202 and The Southern Review.  He has published five volumes of poetry, most recently No Soap, Radio (Black Lawrence Press) and Imminent Disappearances, Impossible Numbers & Panoramic X-Rays, which was awarded the Green Rose Prize from New Issues Press.