The needle-tip,
a bee sting
giving rise to a hive.
A sickening delirium
coursing mercurial under eyelids,
tapeworms and tendrils
weaving wildly:
teeming, churning tides breaking over
greedy teeth (a needy mouth
flaying flesh ferociously,
a fevered wolverine
whipping through a petting zoo).
Each agonizing second
slowly sliding by,
tacky molasses on cloth
covering a table in an innocuous
American home
bruises on mother's face
fade (eggplant to jaundice
to the crimson of the setting sun
dying behind the horizon
line {chopped across a counter-top
like a broken promise...}).
All the lives we compromise
trying to cage a swarm.