Talk Vomit

By Amy Devine

When I hold my daughter to sleep I am aware
that I hold a bees nest made of windows.

My mother’s name means honey bee
and so they spill from her kitchen cabinets,
her bookshelves, her ears.
Her tongue drips their industry onto her outstretched hands.

My childhood best friend stood on a bee
at the beach
and though we no longer speak I know that our babies
were born one day apart

I was stung on New Year’s Day
and it was supposed to comfort me that the bee died
as though I were not already experiencing
the worst day of the year so far.

It is not true that bees should be unable to fly.
If it were, they would not.

I gifted my mother a book of bees
to show her how many different ways there are
to pronounce her name, to give a blessing.

In the Old Testament a man finds a bees nest
in the ribcage of a lion
and thousands of people die.

Wasps are not bees because they can remember faces.
Bees are not wasps because they do not get the chance
to forget.

When I went to give birth I thought that I was going to die
because there was something poetic about
being dismantled by creation.
There was something poetic about leaking honey
from my balled up fists, digging honeycomb holes
into the hospital bed
and calling it a blessing.

I would not have had the chance
to forget my daughter’s face.