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Believe Me

I wanted nothing more
than to be your apiary,
your lone hive laid out in a meadow,
down by the water, cattle grazing,
wildflowers in bloom.

I loved you like a bee loves,
like a worker bee ready to sting its way
through to suicide,
just to keep intruders out.
I wanted only to huddle close to you,
to warm you in cold weather.

I loved you with the blind passion of a drone,
driven to mate in its short season,
with no hope of return
or recognition, no name listed
in the back of the program.

And finally, I loved you
the way the queen bee herself loves,
the way she plots her escape
as she lumbers silently across the frame,
recreating herself in the darkness.

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Pat Hale is the author of the poetry collection, Seeing Them with My Eyes Closed, and the chapbook, Composition and Flight. Her work appears in many journals, including CALYX, Sow's Ear, Dogwood, Connecticut River Review, and Naugatuck River Review, and has been awarded CALYX's Lois Cranston Memorial Poetry Prize, and the Sunken Garden Poetry Prize. She lives in Connecticut, where she serves on the board of directors for the Riverwood Poetry Series, Inc., a group which has brought poetry events and festivals to central Connecticut for more than a dozen years.