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I told my daughter
I was wrong
as her hand doubled up
we can’t live without them
I planted the question
who will take away
robins in January
this house we built
who can understand
stay still
a bee will deathwish
like a boxing glove
now she’s afraid of bees &
who will pollinate
her fears
common as they are
waiting for the cherry to blossom
barbs
a bee won’t waste its sting
its one life
I said
the absence of bees
our lifeblood
now she sees that
don’t make sense
so we can chop it down
in the flesh of reason
Jessica Dubey is the author of the poetry chapbooks All Those Years Underwater and For Dear Life. She has been nominated for a Best of the Net and her work has appeared in such journals as Oxidant | Engine, Barren Magazine, Gulf Stream Literary Magazine, Kissing Dynamite, and The American Journal of Poetry.