You’ll See

The world is an over-plundered beehive.
But the queens are starting community 
pantries and clinics. Their hair: electric 
with ruin. Their armor: cobbled of plastic 
straws— but they have smooth stingers. 
They don’t die after stinging. Every morning, 
light flakes from the salt cellar that is the sky. 
In Rome, where the Pope is dying, the swallows 
are weaving a shroud. Midmorning scatters 
a darkness of rubies. By noon, darkness 
might lift, if you say it could lift or 
if stones could unroll like curtains. 
Night is made of the bodies of thousands 
of bees. You hear them, even if you don't 
see them. You can be sure, whoever preens 
for the camera is the head of the evil empire. 
Those made complicit bow their heads: timid 
serfs, servus, scrapers. Who can still recite 
history’s indubitable facts about freedom? 
Flags of countries make T-shirts only 
tourists will buy. I would destroy 
spaceships if I could. Tomorrow, the light 
will be obsidian and have the flavor of smoke. 
You think all seers and prophets are either 
blind or extinct. But you can hear the sure 
tapping of their canes in labyrinthine 
hallways. They're closer than you think. Nothing 
is truly random. The universe doesn't make 
mistakes that can't be corrected.