yellow jacket

when i met you, the bees came.
first just a few in the laundry room.
they crawled all over the back window
talking to the sun. i tried to let them out
but more always arrived. 
in the dark we became eels. 
made knots to hang the clouds from.
the house shrank to the size of 
a mouth to crawl inside. the bees talked
all night, especially on the nights when
you didn't stay. those nights all the bees
could say was, "more more more."
we wanted too much from each other.
i cut off fingers. the tip of my tongue.
an ear lobe. gathered them in a little glass bowl.
put on a collar made of street lights.
the bees multiplied. built a queen out
of stars & she laughed until the whole house 
thrummed. i would find their carapaces 
on the floor in commas. their hungers,
fruitless. siblings coming to repeat the same
impossible reaching. one time when 
you stayed, there were so many yellow jackets 
that one flew into our desire. 
the bed like the trunk of a getaway. 
i wanted to so much for us. one night i 
climbed into the hive. i tried to leave
with handfuls of echos. tried to build
a queen in the backseat of my car. she always
left before the sun could yolk run 
down the stairs. when you went home, the bees said,
"we are dying." i swept their bodies from
the tile floor. some angry brethren still 
furious & spinning. sometimes i think 
we were just two of them. yellow jackets 
with mouths of nectar. a hive in the walls
of the old house, calling us to eat.