Colony Collapse Syndrome

as we squat through slum
rise slum set
in this labor hood of Atlantis
I wonder how much sun one needs
to see to say she’s seen it set

this life in the house of bees
a simple stock fortified by light
oblique as it ends it seems
she gathers strength in fading
   
    don’t just expect to die
she sighs but
   know that you’ll also be
   forgotten

these are the stories the dead
tell themselves

one night in exile
she made small circles 
with her heels in the bed sheets
like a finger over crystal lips
she swirled until a slow-found
center coalesced into a sugar storm
flowed over our hovel
at the top of the stairs

so much unwaged 
   labor boiled 
   off into the wallpaper
she said

it’s true it smelled
of boxes in there
soft power and echo chamber music
the semiotics of assault rifles 
our shoulders dry rubbed 
with anesthetic saltrash
and technocrats

now this poorly lit paradise
a Molotov wick soaking 
in the oily abyss

so many small engines after dark
charge hard between herbicide lines
in febrile fight or flight
it seems this coast is the same
latitude as my dreams
dukkha music
growing
   eroding

I’m tired for tomorrow

(Spree MacDonald)