The Kindling

 

Bee-Keeping

After the accident
our bees stayed in their hives
and orchards were silent.

My wife was picking sloes,
found acorns on the ground
beside the pumpkin plants.

They were our honey bees,
blackened pods with hot wings
the size of mulberries

falling out of the sky.
My grandfather told me
that honey bees foretell

fire. They knew before man
the reactor had burst
its black concrete belly.

 

 

Millie Guille is a twenty-two year old British poet, reading for the MSt in Creative Writing at the University of Oxford. Her work has appeared in The Cadaverine Magazine, Vagabond City and The Fem Lit Magazine.