They do not even wait for the season
to rise from his bed, button his buttons,
bright-belled and petaled with crisp, pleated leaves on.
The bees barely sit until one sudden
brush of the sun’s bow awakens stiff strings–
just a thin dust of pollen for rosin
and limbs start remembering swinging.
The dive warming up, no bee has forgotten
her steps. That hive of a jukebox keeps time.
Wing upon wing of the one golden hit
every sister grew singing inside. Each line
sweetly hummed, long after the band quits
again, and she’s left– the lights all turned down–
to lose herself in the soft song and the crowd.
By Joshua Dugat
A former high school science teacher, firefighter, and park ranger, Josh Dugat holds a MS in Geography and MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Alabama. He gardens, keeps bees, and two-steps in Tuscaloosa with his wife and son. Josh teaches with the Alabama Prison Arts + Education Project.