The only time I was stung by a bee
I was running around the yard
in bare feet. It was the summer of ’78,
I was nine and leaped from the porch
in brief flight and tumbled in the grass.
Mom knew how to comfort me,
remove the stinger, clean it, ice it,
elevate the leg. There was a picture of me,
smiling after, pointing at the swollen red toe,
a picture lost in the discards of moving on.
Though, is that what we really do?
Don’t the various stings and losses
cling to us like a dust we can never wash off?
I choke on the silences of those who
haven’t talked to me in years, those who’ve
walked away or I’ve walked away from.
In everything I say and do my mother’s voice
comforting me comforts others,
or the bitterness of the last time we spoke
catches in my throat because I’m trying
to recover some hope before the silence
that can’t be broken takes hold of one of us.
