the next yard over

By: Alex Wells Shapiro

In the next yard

over, honeybees swarm

and their sound is huge.

I mistook the drone for road

work until they organized in

the shape of a face.

Its kind eyes coax

a smile from me as dawn

reflects off the Public Storage

sign and catches its vibrous

brow just right.

Buzzing wafts

thru my apt; one

attracted to the Splenda

clumped at the bottom

of a mug or candy

melting in my bag.

They sting

only under threat,

but how can I signal

passivity? At our statures

I’d need distance

to be seen wholly

and my apt is small.

The rat nest in

the sewage drain

must be hungry or have

nibbled poison or it wouldn’t

screech so loud I wake

up on time for work.

The guy upstairs yells

back cause he works

weird hours. One

slipped up from the grate, knelt

by my feet & passed as our

eyes met, neighbors

looping between apts

& U-Hauls around us.

Sausages frying in

side, I sow radish

seeds, back stairwell protection

from a flash storm, & balance

the glass cup on the tallest rail

I can reach where rain & spills

drip thru like a hose

covered by a thumb.

The rest of my bagged

soil, forgotten, overflows

down the gutter, connecting

the dots of pitter patter.

I harvest so infrequently

I watch spiderwebs thicken

with bolting seed pods from my

window as my coffee pot grumbles

hot & buffers the atmosphere.

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Alex Wells Shapiro (he/him) is a poet, artist, and organizer from the Hudson Valley, living in Chicago. He serves as Poetry Editor for Another Chicago Magazine, and co-curates Exhibit B: A Reading Series presented by The Guild Literary Complex. He is the author of a full length collection of poems, Insect Architecture (Unbound Edition 2022), and a chapbook, Gridiron Fables (Bottlecap Features 2022). More of his work can be found at www.alexwellsshapiro.com.