Stung

You were not a sentinel in the empty air,
a spy-drone dropped by an enemy force.
Just a furious sound. A sense of outrage
caught and unseen, all your anger focussed
in one sharp sting. A stab, a thought of pain –
and then you were gone. Autumn sunshine,
conkers gathered in my hands,
splitting from their skins. Gold and green
and the sky a platter of blue. My heart
rising into my scalp, my senses narrowing.
Nothing but a drum, and a thought of getting home,
and then giving in to gravity, grasping the ground.
Perhaps you made sirens sing to skim my ears,
perhaps wove a gauze to cover my eyes.
Perhaps you hardened wax about my chest
and tried to make a cocoon of me.
Perhaps. We had long since been divorced.
No world at all but the world of my body,
and the grass below my cheek, and the thought
that nothing is precious and life could be left
like a sleep.
I will not hate your hive-mates. You are one,
and my autumn is your time to rest.