The sun, filtered to clotted cream yoghurt through early morning haze,
      hasn’t yet dried the grey dew, which I flick with white boots leaving
           a ski-trail from the patio to the files of bees, whose murmurs
                jog me back to an infant school assembly before the hymn.
                     My bees, quite used to me, take two squeezes of smoke
                            in this wet chill to appease their erinaceous slumber,
                                   save one lonely returnee who, heavy with cold
                                            and gossip, alights my held honeycomb
                                                    measling the others with her thrill.
                                                            Two more perfumed puffs to
                                                                    quell the riot and I find
                                                                          myself drifting in
                                                                                 sympathy –
                                                                                     to whence
                                                                                       ---------
                                                                                     she hailed.
                                                                             Where a gardener
                                                                  of fabled rusty masculinity
                                                         hefts pots of blooms at sparrowfart.
                                                  Across gardens she juggernauts directly,
                                           apple-blossom to hive, when fresh blooms
                                     alert her like hazard warning lights; she pelts
                              at the nearest brightest star, startling the gardener.
                       He recovers, musing at the rebouncing flower to murmur:
                 “Now then me ‘andsome. How about you find me a nice belle?”
            She purrs into the air away, leaving him agape at her compliance,
        before he shrugs in dismissal. Now I awaken, to find I’ve finished my
   round of hives, but only recall a single memory of the chore, one bee -
The one that crossed my knuckles like a ring seeking the perfect finger.