We were coming home from piano when I lurched
from the backseat to grab mom’s shoulder, pointing
with my other hand to the usually staid, six feet
of hibiscus outside her car window, my sister’s
front-seat head joining ours in rotation until six,
dilating pupils landed on the massive bee swarm
near the bush’s top. I remember it looking like
Georgia kudzu lining our drive to camp,
or the duck and giraffe topiaries we’d see
from the Disney monorail, so plush and layered,
how they mounded, then spread everywhere.

Since some dissident bees circled our path
to the back door, my mom reversed
the driveway, parking on the grass lawn
and instructing us to run quickly to the front
door. After calling my dad and searching
the Yellow Pages, a man knocked,
and I thought he might be an astronaut
with his white jumpsuit and helmet,
though netting fluttered where the gold visor
should be, and his large, gloved hand waved
us outside to watch from a safe distance.
I didn’t understand why an astronaut
would need the Tin Man’s can until I saw
smoke drift from its spout, circles rising
toward yellow and red flowers my sister and I
arranged behind our ears all those times
we crawled into the now buzzing bush, our fingers
pollen-stained for hours after, lizards and gnats
our only company.

Now, our barefooted neighbors walking
their dogs joined us, no need to rush
in the summer’s late light, as the astronaut cut
nest segments, lining up combs in his big box,
he didn’t even seem to mind being so close,
and by the time my parents returned with plastic
cups and wine, that bush looked like it used to,
and as much as I didn’t want to get stung after
that wasp bit my pinky and thigh last summer,
I wished the bees and neighbors could stay just
a bit longer, at least until the metal street lamps
ushered us into sandwich suppers and clanky,
window units.

Sure enough, the next day, another hive appeared
—the bee man told us a second queen—my parents
retrieving their checkbook, only this time, he smoked
in minutes, the swarm smaller, with no audience’s
oohs or aahs drifting from the hopscotched sidewalk,
just a lone astronaut
holding his big box
as he stepped into
the day’s sun.