Stefania Heim

I DID NOT COMMUNE

with the bee I saw
in the bathroom resting
on a cast-off band-aid
stained and folded
on the windowsill.
There was no buzz
from that bee nor
any message.
It’s spring again
and everything
is permeable
as it has always been: old
windows all the gaps
in the molding.
Where we lived
the summer P was born
you couldn’t leave
fruit in a bowl
covered the rodents
were so hungry. The house
was theirs
long before we borrowed it
where twenty years
before our friend
pulled from dreams in the dark
punched a rat
on his sleeping child’s chest.
We told the story
as about his heroism
not about the house’s
helplessness
in holding off.
Danger:
contained space
with a creature in it.
I don’t even know
if the bee
was trying to get out
it was still
for the moment
of my panicked
regard.

STEFANIA HEIM is author of the poetry collections Hour Book (Ahsahta, 2019) and A Table That Goes On for Miles (Switchback, 2014). Her translations include Geometry of Shadows: Giorgio de Chirico’s Italian Poems (A Public Space, 2019) and de Chirico’s posthumous novel, Mr. Dudron. She lives in Bellingham, and is associate professor at Western Washington University.