Scout bees sought the empty
first, signaled others to fill the space
in the hollow hive towers—a new colony

of scout bees sought the empty
hole where I’ve lost so much family.
The honey returned heady with grace.

Scout bees found the empty
first, a signal for others to fill the space.

We grew up ashamed of who we were
but we were proud of our shame

I never thought I was invisible.
I stand out like a scarecrow painted in hot pink.
and I never knew why I loved being percieved,
or why listening to metallica helped me sleep.
but I’ve always been this way.
I loved mis-matching my clothes as a kid,
singing and dancing in public,
embarressing myself every time I go in public.

I even tried convincing myself I was basic,
just to see what it was like to try to fit in.
But I lost friends and it didn’t end well.
I never lost anyone for the way I dressed
but it still helped me realize something.
I can’t find myself when I’m lost in a field someone else made.
I have to plant the root of the stockings,
I have to search my own field.
Even if that means I’m alone in that journy,
It means I’ll find people who can give me better support.

I feel invisible to my family.
Ignored.
annoying.
ungreatful.
but I can’t lie to them or myself.
even if it means I’ll get a jugdmental look every time I walk down the stairs.
Their eyes shoot like daggers in my heart,
A dagger signed “no one will love you”
and those words course through my blood.

It never helps when someone else adds a dagger.
trust broken off too harsh.
but at least I have myself.
Even if it makes me want to get my own dagger,
stab myself til I start to listen.

Its hard to be myself in a family who doesnt share my field.
Thats why music has become my family.

Is it possible to shower in 2026
without thinking about data centers
or dried up watersheds
or the ocean
or folks in my own state
in my own county
who struggle for access to clean water?

It feels luxurious—
hot cascade scalding off the grime,
soap bubbling up across my skin,
everything circling the drain as I try
to enjoy the sensation of getting clean, 
fingers pruning up
just as I turn off the stream.

I pause to consider
what it means to have water
at the flick of a faucet
running right into my house
to sinks and tubs and toilets.
How relatively new it is in human history
how quick we got used to it
how quick it could go away.

And in too many places, it already has.

crane, drake
and cane brake make
the dace-lack lake with its deep dark jaw

prey guts girded by sweetest steak
crayfish flesh and clam shell fresh
why osprey claws the spray
possum parts pulled unarrayed
when vulture vaunts the car-tarred ways
pitch pines tent the sky’s blue vault
where herons pick at pike and gar

whether beak breaks
or talon takes
liver, seed, cattail reed and all
give the glutton grackle craw
its prickly pear, its snowshoe hare, its
owl pellet
that mouse’s bony port of call

nightjar, rake
crake, crackling daw
caw caught out of crow’s bright jaw

caracol-spiralled eagle slip
clasp of cloying lover’s grip
now free fall
free fall
free
fall

Coal seams camouflage
open scars along highways
running skyward

Occasionally 
a student 
will ask 
can you 
whistle 
can you 
wink both eyes 
can you 
touch your nose 
with the tip 
of your tongue. 

These are 
high school 
students 
by the way 
interested 
in distraction 
delay, 
stupid human 
tricks to
postpone
the inevitable. 

One day 
this kid 
asked to attend 
his science
teacher’s pet
hamster’s burial. 

I wanted
to ask where  
the graveyard 
for class pets 
was located

but decided 
just to ask 
if it was 
meaningful 
to him and 
he said yes. 

     “I do my finest listening in the dark.
       My best friend has always been ink.”
           Aimee Nezhukumatathil

A stranger’s voice whispers words
I’ve never put together into my ear

and something inside me says yes.
Rhythm, cadence, vocabulary

evoke response. Words I’ve never
put together come together.

My finest listening commits itself
to ink, a tale I never would have told

if I hadn’t heard it echoed
in another poet’s words. 

You crossed the sea, 
unbidden 
to find me on a cold shore
squinting over needle and thread
sucking sore thumb, trying again

You took my work, 
unpicked
every timid stitch I thought fine 
shook your head, spoke an old language
that smelled of bone and wings

You doffed your dress, 
glyphs
skittering epic ballads in the folds of your linen 
showed me a world where women walked unchallenged,
an old goddess’ name new on my tongue

You covered me, 
naked
taught me slowly to prick the patterns
of life and death into the weave of my own garments,
to move pain and joy as twins pushing against a shrinking womb    

I awoke with the ocean in my ear.