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The bee box arrives, its furious Latin, or Greek: menarche & all that. But you know what this is for, this is not for you. Nubility comes later, maybe. You are neither predictable nor consistent in your intervals, your duration, your pain.
Less celebrated, the hive depends on non-fertile female worker bees. We clean & build, forage & gather, guard. We are often short-lived, our bodies collect at the mouth of hives, we sacrificial females, we noble honey-drudges. Few songs sung for this thousand-strong caste.
For the woman who doesn’t mother, others caution: you will regret your choice. For the woman who mothers, no one asks: do you regret your choice? But some do – there is research on regretting motherhood, but it is the great taboo. The ecologist said, “The ability to birth fertilized eggs – to mate – is called a ‘privilege.’” (That’s just how she put it.) The way we word platitudes: Children are a joy; Children are a blessing, encode non-choice into our Cultural DNA.
Since stopping my fallopian tubes with nickel and overgrowth flesh, I’ve become predictable & consistent in interval, duration, pain. I exceed my own estimation of absorptive materials, the ticking of the clock. I throw clots, accumulated endometrium. (Brood cells uncleaned). The women I know are long past this – menopausal, or hysterectomied. The aged queens ask why I save this equipment, this empty room, this deflated balloon.
As if it only values with use, as if it doesn’t reside inside me, isn’t me.
As if I haven’t stored things there: an armoire; two tube TV’s – their elegant curved backs, outdated, but still working; some clothes I may fit into again.
The nuptial flight marks the position of the hive, days after the Queen emerges from her cell; other flights last only minutes, long enough to collect what she needs of drones, before returning to keep the factory humming. Sometimes she cannot or will not fly; sometimes she leaves. A hive without a proper queen is doomed.
C. Kubasta writes poetry, fiction, & hybrid forms. Her most recent book of poetry is Of Covenants (Whitepoint Press) and the novel This Business of the Flesh (Apprentice House). Lately, she's been writing feminist horror—and is excited about her forthcoming collection of short stories Abjectification (fall 2020). Find her at www.ckubasta.com & follow her @CKubastathePoet
