Bee was humming to herself in the garden
Aching for the sweetness
Of the most brilliant bloom
When she spotted Rose
Who sat red and waiting and wonderful,
A single drop of blood
In a firmament of white
Landing lightly on Rose’s crimson body,
just as it was Rose’s nature to give
So it was Bee’s nature to take
But no sweetness could tempt Bee
To steal a kiss from Rose’s lips

The months grappled with each other
Spring yielding to summer’s glare
With bee and rose beneath them
Delighting in each other’s beauty
And made alive with buzzing conversation
And still Bee had stolen nothing
To spin to honey, though she knew
It would be a nectar to make gods jealous
Bee would not take, and Rose
Who was red as the dawn
Could not bring herself to give
If it meant Bee would move onwards
To other beacons of light in the garden

And so it went

•

Rose knew she was dying
Could feel the cold wind creeping
And killing her sisters around her
So she said to Bee
“Take all I have left to give you,
Make something decadent of me”
Bee’s small heart broke within her chest
But she could not stand before winter
And demand it pass over a single rose
And in the hush of November
Bee spun pollen into poetry
Adorned it with a single beating grief
And from the sweetest, reddest rose
Came the bitterest of tastes