Gabriella Torres

Catching a Wild Hive

The ghosts come walking
two by two, hiding themselves

in hallways, in lamp posts,
in the cracks of reservation.

Entering the room
through a broken seam

the rain makes it difficult
to follow the brood the rain

makes it difficult
to address the tone

in the back drop, a
silence in the eaves.

I am only a criminal
in the smallest of things,

saying  you but meaning
everything else in its place.

**

Fall Management and Wintering of Bees

Lying in the hive blood
pulses in the wings.

The brood is calling
the mud to my knees.

The brood is calling me
a hero. Inside this moment

the house trembles at the sound
of whispering feet.

This is only a minor haunting.
This is only a little spell.

When you left you thought
you took your shadow too,

but there is something left
behind there is a residue

of belief, a weaving of
pinholes catching your steps,

the echo of recall
a voiceless retreat.

***

The Composition of Honey

Waiting in the wings for the shadow to subside.

Waiting in the wings to discover itself.

Waiting in the wings to say: a rhythm of ghosts,

a hybrid of associations. In one circumstance reporting

on the weather, in another scene your breath.

Waiting in the wings to fashion your silhouette

from wire and bone, to disengage the hive,

to settle on the crow. Waiting in the wings

to behold the brood, the queen emerging.

It is feeling sinister. It is waiting in the wings.

It is a darkness or a whisper, it is hiding in the cracks.

A little pinprick to get you, a little mote for swimming.

When I tear myself away I won’t leave without

a thing to remember, a thing to subdue,

without little claws or a handful.