Monday Poems: "Sisyphus Bee" -- by Robert Wrigley

I couldn't help it, I nearly fell asleep
on the grass in front of the tulips,
but lying there seemed to be
the best angle from which to see
and study the way the bee

worked from red lip to lip,
his legs by the third filled up
and by the fourth so heavy he
fell from the blossom onto me,
and I let him rest easy

for a while, though he slipped
on my belly hair and sipped
at a drop of sweat, maybe--
he was, it seemed, so thirsty --
then walked the half-length of me,

or of my torso at least, a trip
that cost him each step
a milligram of the load we
both knew was his goal and misery,
and how it was he'd come to be,

of all unflowery places, on me,
though in the sun I could also see
his long trail up my belly,
and the gold left behind each step,
before he flew, awkwardly,
to the next waiting tulip.

------------------------------------------------

Robert Wrigley has been awarded fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the Idaho Commission on the Arts. His poems have been widely anthologized, twice included in Best American Poetry, and featured on NPR’s The Writer’s Almanac.

He has taught at Lewis-Clark State College, Warren Wilson College, the University of Oregon, the University of Montana, Warren College, and the University of Idaho. He lives in Idaho with his wife, the writer Kim Barnes.

"Sisyphus Bee" was published in Wrigley's 2010 collection Beautiful Country.