HIVE (from The Lisa Sequence)

A poem.
A white silhouette of a person's head with a brown backdrop and large bees surrounding the head like a halo. A bright pink rose with a bee pollinating it is inside the silhouette.
llustration by Danzhu Hu

Lisa Montgomery, the first woman killed by the U.S. federal government since 1953, was executed under former President Trump.

Red roses blooming all at once
when she finds between herself and any door
a male, be him grandson or lawyer, any flinch of any him brings a springtime
terror of thorn and attar, shivering with adrenaline, a clawing
of petal-flesh, the past beneath it, the blood
un-forgetting,

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