The Blue Bowl

They are Hass's bees, the ones I keep thinking of, the ones in the blue bowl outside of the composer's door. Though they're dead, I can hear them hum beneath the petals. Today, I am hungry, have eaten apples and eggs, have warmed up pans and sliced up chicken, but still, the gnawing emptiness. Standing by the train this morning, I hugged my husband longer than usual. Don't leave, I said, and we laughed--of course, there is leaving. To leave, to return, to fill up, to be done. When I got home there was a note I had scrawled before dawn: throw out the fruit. All week, it has been sitting in its bowl on the counter attracting the tiniest of flies.