Birds and Bees Feed Upon me
A Poem by Will Falk
Summer ran across spring like she hadn’t seen me for seasons. She pinned me to the desert floor, pulled me from my sweat-soaked clothes, and flung them with her hot breath to snag on barbed wire, to tug down every fenceline, to sail bodiless and free through sagebrush seas. My body wasn’t going anywhere. I prayed desperately that she liked what she saw. When we were finished, she shined her bright head on my heaving, sunburnt chest. She cooled me with her breeze and when all the thumping calmed down, she peeled my rib cage back, one rib at a time, until my secrets opened like books with broken spines for every earthly creature to read. She invited hummingbirds and bumble bees in then to drink from my heart what they need. They left the secrets. Instead, they licked the sweetness, sucked the sugar that flooded my blood when summer came over me. Sweat vanished with my salt. Vibrating wings carried away my sweet. And, I let summer go believing I could be redeemed with seasons upon seasons of birds and bees feeding upon me.
Will Falk (he/him) is a biophilic writer and lawyer. The natural world speaks and Falk's work is how he listens. His first collection of poetry When I Set the Sweetgrass Down was released by Wayfarer Books in April, 2023. He is an MFA candidate through Western Colorado University's Graduate Program in Creative Writing.
