Fire and Bees – Bethan Rees

Fire and Bees

A low hum as the gas oven
flicks into ignition. We leave the door
open because the dog
is cold. A house filled with
warmth. A little log fire
of a man lies in bed, pillows to be
shook, hearts to burn into flames.

He sets the house on fire, and we drown
in trouncing flames, together. We are close, closer,
closest until we are ashes and then we are one.

The dog didn’t make it either.

Dull crackles turn ember to smoke,
as a crowd of bees fill the open space
where our house once stood.
We, as ash people, keep
them. The queen is adamant that we
are hers, and as long as we are
together we are content.

When everything is back to everyday,
I am a furnace
that encases us both in heat
as we sleep, and in the shuffled
awakenings we both can hear,
that dangerous buzz
on my breath.

Bethan Rees has been published in Three Drops from a Cauldron, Fly on the Wall Poetry and Amaryllis and studies MSc Creative Writing for Therapeutic Purposes. Her successes are owed to her elderly dog, Mitzie. (and partner Reese, she supposes).