Dance by Annick Yerem
I was scared of the drive home,
hundreds of kilometres towards
the second funeral in five weeks,
so you went to the best baker
in town, got me a sweet braided
loaf, support measured in flour,
raisins, slivered almonds
But when you unpacked it,
a dead bee was baked into the crust,
fully preserved as if poured in resin,
its blossom dreams halted in flight
forever.
At least it died happy, you said
and I imagined that bee, doing
one last waggle dance, wanting
to share the lemony sweetness
with all the other bees, dancing
as if its life depended on them
to find it before the heat came.
I left it on there and during the drive
opened the window, peeled it off
and let it fly, one last time, near
flowers, near trees, dancing,
twirling and the next moment
gone, just gone.
Annick Yerem (she/her) lives and works in Berlin. In her dreams, she can swim like a manatee. Annick tweets @missyerem and has, to her utmost delight, been published by Pendemic, Detritus, @publicpoetry, RiverMouthReview, #PoetRhy, Anti-Heroin-Chic, Rejection Letters, Dreich, 192, The Failure Baler and Rainbow Poems. https://missyerem.wordpress.com. https://linktr.ee/annickyerem