Usually, it’s the males. Maybe

they’ve gone out with buddies

in their leks, keeping their radar

tuned for female bees as they move

from sweet pea to mallow flower and

snapdragon, gathering pollen

in those hairy saddlebags called

corbiculae. Maybe they have

no place to return or are lost,

having gone too far from the nest.

Maybe the empty football fields

and elementary school playgrounds,

long unmowed since our common

isolation and teeming now

with yellow dandelions, proved

too much. Sweet alyssum,

phlox; wisteria cascading heavy

out of themselves. Honeysuckle

and evening-scented stock,

dianthus crowned with hint

of cinnamon and smoky clove.

Female bees will also burrow

deep inside the shade of a squash

flower: the closer to the source

of nectar, the warmer and more

quilt-like the air. In the cool

hours of morning, look closely

for the slight but tell-tale

trembling in each flower cup:

there, a body dropped mid-flight,

mid-thought. How we all retreat

behind some folded screen as work

or the world presses in too

soon, too close, too much.