Christine MacKenzie

BEEHIVE

a lattice of dripping honeycomb mounted in the hollow of a tree. her sour breath steams in white
ropes around pine trees / powder clinging heavy to masses of needles. dead honeybees laid in the
leaves / stiffened into black / & yellow-fleeced pellets. she fingers them like cacti crowned with
large flowers / severed from the spinous balls that littered her dreams / swallows these as if the
tattered remains thread color / into flesh / so white / it melds into the frost. let her lie at the base
of the moss-covered tree / chest cut right down the middle as she ponders the first bite into a
candied apple as a child. flashes of light dropped to the earth like sapphires / she wants to scrape
her nails down those beeswax walls / & drench herself into the honey-brimmed pool / feasting on
its brightness. earth soaked in blood. like a leaf held up to the sun, her veins darken blue in faint
trails across the chest. a honeybee landed on her lips / curled up between them. 

Christine MacKenzie has a B.A. in English, creative writing and psychology from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, and will start an MSW in Interpersonal Practice in fall 2020 to become a therapist. Previously, she has been published in literary journals such as Susquehanna, The Inflectionist Review, Red Cedar Review, Fourteen Hills, The Merrimack Review, and elsewhere.