
Rebecca Gayle Howell (ed.)
et al.
Published online:
18 May 2023
Published in print:
07 March 2023
Online ISBN:
9780813197418
Print ISBN:
9780813182438
Contents
Cite
Erdrich, Heid E., 'Intimate Detail', in Rebecca Gayle Howell, Ashley M. Jones, and Emily J. Jalloul (eds), What Things Cost: an anthology for the people (Lexington, KY , 2023; online edn, Kentucky Scholarship Online, 18 May 2023), https://doi.org/10.5810/kentucky/9780813182438.003.0118, accessed 14 May 2025.
Extract
Late summer, late afternoon, my workinterrupted by bees who claim my tea,even my pen looks flower-good to them.I warn a delivery man that my bees,who all summer have been tame as cows,now grow frantic, aggressive, difficult to shoofrom the house. I blame the second bloomscome out in hot colors, defiant vibrancy—unexpected from cottage cosmos, nicotiana,and bean vine. But those bees know, I’m toldby the interested delivery man, they have onlyso many days to go. He sighs at sweetness untasted.Still warm in the day, we inspect the bees.This kind stranger knows them in intimate detail.He can name the ones I think of as shopping ladies.Their fur coats ruffed up, yellow packages tuckedbeneath their wings, so weighted with their findsthey ascend in slow circles, sometimes drop, whileother bees whirl madly, dance the blossoms, ravishbroadly so the whole bed bends and bounces alive.He asks if I have kids, I say not yet. He has five,all boys. He calls the honeybees his girls althoughhe tells me they’re ungendered workerswho never produce offspring. Some hour drops,the bees shut off. In the long, cool slant of sun,spent flowers fold into cups. He asks me if I’ve everseen a solitary bee where it sleeps. I say I’ve not.The nearest bud’s a long-throated peach hollyhock.He cradles it in his palm, holds it up so I spythe intimacy of the sleeping bee. Little life safe in a petal,little girl, your few furious buzzings as you stirstay with me all winter, remind me of my work undone.
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