Equinox

By Elizabeth Alexander Now is the time of year when bees are wild and eccentric. They fly fast and in cramped loop-de-loops, dive-bomb clusters of conversants in the bright, late-September out-of-doors. I have found their dried husks in my clothes.

They are dervishes because they are dying, one last sting, a warm place to squeeze a drop of venom or of honey. After the stroke we thought would be her last my grandmother came back, reared back and slapped

a nurse across the face. Then she stood up, walked outside, and lay down in the snow. Two years later there is no other way to say, we are waiting. She is silent, light as an empty hive, and she is breathing.