Everything is squiggles
except the sounds, and the slide
that he sits upon
He thrusts out his knee
in which there are holes.
Those holes are filled with cotton.
“It’s a bee sting,” he explains;
he is featureless, but for a pitted knee
“The white stuff is the sting,” he says, seriously.
He pulls some out to show me.
I am confused: I always thought that stings were angry,
and red
I leave him be, then
and everything leaves me too
except that tension that I feel
as I watch for bees