Stands at the edge of the track,
watching his horse
stride through hooves,
everyone cheering.

People get on their feet;
it’s the last lap.

But the writer,
well the writer
stays seated
staring at the ancient steed.

Newspaper across his lap,
over-sized round sun glasses,
he now peers to the left,
his old friend dashing the last
hundred.

Words, like clouds of pollen,
are already planting themselves
in the back of the poet’s brain.

He is the bumblebee,
the writer,
picking up life,
and then dropping it off.

Death, they say in the world of bumblebees,
comes hard and fast.

There’s a turn taking shape straight ahead,
and a man glancing at me through some
cheap sunglasses and a grin.

And it’s sad to know that the price
moving life to its next destination
has anything to do with heartache.