Swarm

"Do not fear mystery over precision." ~ Robyn Schiff


All day at the peak of heat, after the crows 
have had their fill, small clouds of dark buzzing 

encircle every limb of the tree. It is the smell 
of fermenting which lures them, of sweetness 

gone beyond what the flesh held in until it could 
no longer. Sweetness bursting out of itself is messy:

fig hips splayed open, garden walls slicked purple 
with juice; dark-armored beetles crowded around 

their task, emerald-tipped flies marking their own 
territories. None are more greedy or villainous 

than the other. They do what they do, trained 
according to their own intelligence; which is to say, 

nothing that we ourselves haven't recognized,
bubbling up out of our own blind appetites.