Your swarms are dying out across the land.
scientists are stumped, and frankly, worried.
our race will starve, it seems, when yours die out.
it is not just your honey, they say. it’s the

Pollinations you do so well for us.
so I have rolled up my Times as usual,
in times past you’d be dead by now, swatted
near the television, by the window

Closed against the cold. but look: times have changed
& my rolled newspaper’s for shooing you
to the safety of flowering trees. there’s
the open window, & my orchard of

Underyielding trees. go, resume your nectar-
rustling, pollination rounds, & just in case
your queen mum ails from a broken ego too,
here’s a poem from us, to honey headquarters.