I found a toybox full of bees
in my meadow and sat for days
with this ecstasy of dark moving air.
Did you see their queen?
Fewer eggs came each hour,
her youngest children were weak.
Can a bee’s dance map a way to silence?
If a bee found silence, none of her sisters
would believe her.
Were there still toys in the box?
A doll’s head they might have held sacred.
A pair of dice with nothing left to resolve.
Did you sleep nearby?
One stung me in the night and then died.
Some left honey on my lips and were lost.
What is it like in the cells?
Before breath, before wings,
there was only a curl of hunger.
Lee Potts is founder and editor-in-chief of Stone Circle Review. His work has appeared in Glass: A Journal of Poetry, The Shore, The Night Heron Barks, Rust + Moth, UCity Review, Moist Poetry Journal, and elsewhere. He is the author of two chapbooks. The most recent, We’ll Miss the Stars in the Morning (Bottlecap Press), was published in 2024. He lives just outside of Philadelphia with his wife and daughter.