The Day the Beekeeper Died: Sulaymaniyah
His daughter pulls on
her father’s frayed dishdasha
to go check the bees.
Today she doesn’t
carry the smoke canister
with her to the field.
She opens a tray
while talking down their high whine,
breaks off honeycomb
and rubs it over
her face and hair, over white
cloth, down to her feet.
Each of her hands holds
the crumbling comb like a sponge
while she waits for them.
When the first one comes
she feels wings against her toes,
a tongue unscrolling.
She wills herself not
to laugh as the next alights
on her neck, tickling
her hairs as it walks.
Then they descend to shoulders,
forearms, chest, thighs, eyes
she shuts—she feels the
thousand tongues on the cloth.
Feather-like wings churn
in her ears, rustle
and hum with agitated talk.
Never been so loved.
Her father’s alive,
she’s a torch of burning bees,
tears course across cheeks.
When her mother sees
the apparition of bees
walking towards their door
she falls on her knees.
It is the end of the world.
But when the angel
speaks with her daughter’s
voice she’s not amazed. Mama,
how do I end this?
Her mother brushes
bees away from her eyes, pulls
them from her hair and
undresses her child,
hanging the winged dishdasha
on the clothes line.
Carries her naked
girl into the house to bathe.
The bee-like angels
take all day to strip
honey from the robe, return
it to their tiered home.
Copyright Credit: “The Day the Beekeeper Died: Sulaymaniyah,” copyright 2010 by David Sullivan, published by permission of the author.
Source: 2010