"Beauty will save the world." —Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I could write a gorgeous poem
about the hollow hives—

their many minute evictions,
their delicate wax-paper brittled

& lifted like makeshift kites
by the warm evening wind—

but beauty will not save the bees.
Late morning, a drone buzzing

listlessly against a sunflower
rotting on the stalk, pale motes

of mold coating its fur. Dark
bands interrupted so the drone

almost resembles a tiny skull.
I hope that one day, every fig

hatches like an egg. Its wasp-gut
yolk molted into so many gold

-maned bees that its knuckled dark
skin opens, an illuminated window

spilling blades of honey into the night.