I turn on the porchlight
so the insects will come,
so my skin that drank of you
can marvel at how
quickly it becomes enraged,
a luscious feast. I’m waiting
to hear myself crystallize
with revelation.
Who stands guard at rooms locked into tombs?
Who will dictate the order
in which we’re consumed?
—I turn the light off,
but who taught me to stay quiet
when the power is down?
You’re so sweet, men say to me,
but tonight, I want
no one. Tonight, a drone
in Yemen detonates and rends the sky,
and in my father’s garden,
a drone is a stingless bee unable
to make honey.
I crush the antennae, regard
the exoskeleton. Do we ever learn
that we’re given weapons
to be vicious so we can be sweet?
I look up,
because there is still a sky, the junebug
that whirs across it, because
there is still a head-scarfed girl
who sucks the sugar
from a ginger candy
before she explodes—I look up,
and the sky still flints with so many stars. Above me.
Above you.

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