You anticipate the bees’ arrival
with that same wonder lust in
your eyes that a child wears on
Christmas Eve, spending the whole
month before their arrival planning,
thinking out the construction of their
houses, going back and forth on the
decision of where you will put them
in the backyard.   I listen with
fascination as you explain to me
about the workers, drones, and the
queen, who from a larva you tell me,
feeds solely on royal jelly.  

You have become a beekeeper
extraordinaire, intent on teaching
me everything you know about bees.
And it is quite funny when you mimic
the bee dance, buzzing around in
circles, then abruptly changing
direction and buzzing around again.  
I watch you with the same wonder
lust in my eyes as you have when
you talk about your bees, feeling
a wealth of love for you, this man
tenderly caring for and loving one
of God’s smallest creations.

I anticipate the bees’ arrival with
dread, careful not to let on how
much they intimidate me.  After
they arrive you take out a few and
gently hold them up for me to see,
the thought of their sting sending
chills over my body.   That night, as
we do our own tango between the
sheets, I think of them out there
buzzing, buzzing; the ****** queen
leaving the hive to mate with drones-
the lazy bees who make no honey,
their sole purpose to mate then die.

The roses on my table appear to be singing,
so sure of themselves and their beauty.
Both proud and arrogant they break into song
the minute they are alone, when they think
no one hears.
I can tell by their pursed mouths, I have
caught them in action, they have been
silenced in midair by my scrutinizing eyes.
With red mouths agape, they stealthily
**** in air, in lieu of the next chorus, their
petals wrapped tight to hide trilling tongues.

They cannot fool me.

From a vase on my table the roses are singing,
stars in a theatre of dishes, pots and pans.
I haven’t caught them yet for they are
secretive and sly.  Yet somehow I know this
theory to be true.

While I am away or while I am sleeping I
know they are singing, shedding their petals
like a burlesque singer sheds her clothes.  They
repeat their song, day after day, night after
night, and they will go down singing, dropping
from exhaustion as the water runs dry, till the
last one withers and dies.

Before the actual birth, I tried to convince myself
there could be no room for fear.  That in fact, the
only way I was going to get through this and come
out smelling like a rose was to keep my wits about
me, focus on my breathing and counting, and to
push when I felt the need to push.

When the labor pains worsened I forgot all prior
convincing, edged out of that window to stand on
the ledge of fear.  Trying to push this baby through
the birth canal was like trying to push a blimp
through the Washburn Tunnel.  All the preparatory
lessons flew off that ledge like birds to the wind.

As the sun rose over Houston, the rays of dawn
crept through the hospital blinds, bringing with
them the first cry of my newborn nine pound,
fourteen ounce son, affirming that old adage that
everything is bigger in Texas.   And, as my eyes
lit on the dozen yellow roses you had sent me,
the thought that if I was going to come out of this
smelling like a rose, the yellow rose of Texas
was the one I’d want to be.