wildscape. literary journal

Hive Under the Black Window
by Sean Wang

The hive buckled into yesterday’s ash.
I touched the black window. My palm sugared.
Pollen lay on the sill, light as flour.
We had blackouts.

I said she flew. My grandmother didn’t.
The power died. She struck a match, cupped it.
Bee-sound chewed the studs, a low warm noise,
louder than our teeth could keep the time.

She watched the candle gutter, then build,
tongue working stamp gum loose, drop by drop,
a tin clicking shut between stories.
It wasn’t a lesson. It was what we had.

Two bees in a jar, that was us,
syrup-slow. I spun the glass to blur
a decade, the rim ringing soft.
She kept time with her hand, pinched my sleeve,

eyes on the clock, the second hand scratching.
She wound the corridor lamp, seated and turned,
the jar’s threads kissing the bulb’s neck.
Current took, wax set, we moved again.

Light is a mouth we screw on.
I walked the same comb of rooms
until the hallway light split the hive’s dark belly.
My face sticky with honey, I crawled out,

hands on the sill, the black window humming.
Under yesterday, the pollen kept—
grain against glass, grit in the groove.
I left it there, under the black window.     

about the author // Sean Wang