Love Machine

This entry is part 12 of 51 in the series Une Semaine de Bonté

I wear your love like an edible medallion
into the bucolic valley of the shadow
among drowsy lambs, Kalashnikovs

and opium poppies. All my hos
are calling hosannas because there are
no more bees. Photos of the missing

haunt the backs of milk cartons.
Whose slaves are they now?
Will their bodies ever be found?

I generate my own buzz, a self-
pollinating brand ambassador
hustling fleurs du mal.

Do you smell it, too:
the marketing opportunity for bee-
sized drones? I halve and pit

a free-stone peach and peer at that
footprint of a brain surrounded
by sweetness. I bite in.