Poems by George Bilgere

Bee

by George Bilgere

From Canary Summer 2017

George lives near Lake Erie on the Euclid Creek watershed.

A dead bee on the table.
Like seeing a celebrity.

Somewhere a beekeeper,
priestly in his vestments,
is missing him
in the golden congregation.

This little worker died
far from home. We’ll have that
in common, I suppose,
my own home now a highway,
my childhood an elegy
my sisters and I
never stop revising.
Hollyhocks and honeysuckle.
Buzz and pollen all summer long.

I sit here with the spent
bullet of him, the stalled
machinery, until
my coffee comes. Then
I brush him to the sidewalk
with the leaves and butts.

© George Bilgere