What if I look down in the Port-o-John and there is a man under the filth, only his eyes and forehead ribbeting like a cartoon frog in a swamp?
What if the bees keep dying faster than the synaptic light in my father’s head?
I used to pray that forever had a back cover
until my mother told me to stop
and steel myself against the demons both in my brain and out
demons who leak pesticides into the cerebral channels
demons worshipping rockstars
literal demons above the bed
Droves of bees blink out
dropping midair like paperweights
my father is telling me to turn back the clock again and again
his stories mock the ears
like music from violin necks
or the sound of bees on the chalkboard
My father wrinkling and unwrinkling
My mother’s vertex of wicked charisma
Bees lost at the ark of conversant towers
The man, in the Port-O-John,
demon below me ribbeting,
iris regulating light
Kimberly Prijatel studies policy at the Ohio State University. When she was 5, she bit the mailman.