Through the window she counts five types

of shadow and a pattern in the lower sky;

the child in a tea-stained dress.

She interrupts the solid line of ants with her palm,

herding them towards the ledge.

Outside, the Catholic bee-keeper

who hid his hands all winter

has buried them

in the borrowed light of the hive.

Sometime this afternoon,

the sky will darken and there will be

tiny licks of mania on the pane.

Upstairs, wrapped in bee hum,

I'm staring at my reflection,

plucking my eyebrows in the tattered light.