Bramah and the Beggar Boy Read online

  hardhack—small, glabrous, beaked,

  she’d tramp under shrubs,

  black hawthorn, doubly serrate,

  mid-rib above deep green

  she kept tucked close to her chest,

  letters from the good doctor:

  Only the apical ends

  …galea unfolded to reveal

  Aunty Maria Told Us

  Search for the Dove Tree, follow pocket-ghosts

  —Davidia involucrata, three children chanted,

  three replied, pick and pick—

  at night, encounter, the last with such stories!

  Once upon a time, long ago, Grand-Mère

  travelled far-away-Eastern: tiny shops,

  hidden shelves, a book, a trader, first

  to describe. Oh, Night of the Story,

  tell us more, tell us cordate and acuminate.

  Help us journey, save us from the toothed margins,

  no balms for bitten.

  Glabrous on top, Grand-Mère said of the story-tree,

  downy below.

  Male, duo-male to female,

  big bracts, the base, one long as the other.

  Creamy white? We asked, together sang,

  ovate pendulous.

  Aunty Maria said, Never count on flowers.

  We searched a monument with names.

  This is what was told, handed down, petal to petal:

  large drupes, woody crested seed, red bloom.

  Aunty Maria told us to save seeds—

  She told us to search for the scientists.

  Scientists on the Run

  Now, at that time and in that place

  we, sent to observe, wrote down

  their songs, those roving brigades

  Women of the Cleaning Class:

  Required to Recite, as directed from Consortium:

  We can see, in the pulsing places

  Traces of his mordant graces

  Where his tanks grind and crush

  Scornfully, placate the dust—

  We hid our data in abandoned shacks.

  First, we measured for bees, then they died out.

  Then we collected rain, droplets burning skin.

  No snow on the mountains, bridges torn down.

  The shelter sat where the wind bit sharp

  a crook-joint of land outside rows of—

  There huddled a heifer, her calf

  ruffled brown hide

  pressed close, a young goat, a fawn

  three hybrid gazelles.

  We’d not last long, past fire, the things lost

  like this.

  In the Dry, We Find Our Moments to Rest

  Afternoons, side by side, counting Carder

  Anthidium on white clover, borage, bellflowers

  outside Rentalsman, tennis courts blackened—

  to be spectator: luxury. A book, opened,

  laptop and free access:

  Sun of disquiet. Position calculated. Bombini’s dance.

  Where it once stood, gate opened, Bombus mixtus

  Blackberry, buttercup, fireweed,

  hairy cat’s ear, thistle

  Of demonstrations, nothing. The populace, un-

  willing, no more, the people, dis-

  satisfied, uneasy, intent on survival, a dis-

  parity, only in the coveted sectors behind

  barricades. A ground offensive.

  Our Comparative Study: The Beauty Bush

  At noon the tennis courts, wet with rain, rare:

  we counted eleven honey locust,

  branches thickened with moss.

  Six bird nests, omens—forget-me-not—

  Long-tongued, the distance between

  Short-tongued, not quite reaching the blooms

  Kolkwitzia amabilis, signals of distress.

  The glossa with terminal flabellum:

  In long-tongued bees, the lorum is V-shaped and the mentum is

  In short-tongued bees, the lorum is not—

  Alone in her condo out by the Good-Bye River,

  a woman, chair-bound, reaches for cardamom,

  brown hand trembling—

  Mornings we sit side by side, her kitchen table, Rentalsman home.

  She asks us to read: the scattering scents of a Great Companion,

  bruised Time   unheeding

  Our Observations May Well Go Unheeded

  Before the first Catastrophe, to keep track of—

  yew bushes, simple varieties mass-planted

  These trees could not know April’s time of dread,

  the cold, a keepsake, all such portents.

  Parks regulated; Consortium yielded. Autumn. Long the dry—

  at the community garden, only one hive, small masons’

  colony-Heriades and struggled for months.

  Each time of day telegraphed

  messages, sent according to slant of light, rasp of wind:

  If summer, direction turned, where each follicle would rise

  (and wind, with its name removed

  If against winter, bend,

  where a hood without fur,

  (many gathered to melt snow, before poison

  Toss a little dust! No month end safe enough to ward off

  behind the tennis courts, sheltering ditch, three Douglas firs.

  In August, girls with sticks would beat out the nest

  abandoned. Not one person would swear to seeing

  the swarm.

  Battle Song of the Streets

  We that assemble: Consortium banned.

  Cardo, stipes, galea, we whispered.

  The City, our essence, cacophony,

  pitched battles, informers and miscreants.

  Our footsteps crushed wild thyme, boots cracked cement,

  ropes to scale upwards those high walls.

  We wanted to be counted yet deplored

  repetition: stick to stick beatings, blood.

  Children as young as ten years old coughed, screamed,

  Freedom fighter, terrorist, who’s right, wrong?

  IED baby, your bombs, our arms, boom!

  When they came for us, our bruised hands held

  pass cards once coveted, once accepted

  at the steps of public buildings where scores

  of protest put down. Many generations.

  Outside Perimeter walls, Beggar Boys,

  Sword Girls, too, battling Guards of the Fifth Gate.

  There came a time, when soldiers rode, guns cocked.

  By then everyone yelling the same words:

  IED baby, your bombs, our arms, boom!

  IED baby, inside, outside, room—

  And then those children crying, masks ripped, torn,

  Freedom fighter, terrorist, who’s right, wrong?

  We just want enough to eat, been so long.

  Night after night huddled at the Fifth Gate

  we let winds breathe, cardo, stipes, galea

  around condo cranes, we wandered, spray cans

  in hand, our heads bent, eyes downcast.

  No one left to believe we were once scientists.

  After Curfew, Two Masked Scientists, Roaming

  Now these two were loved above all else.

  And what form, what shape did their touching take?

  We asked in at bars along bombed streets, searching:

  we drank nectar at a tea shop along old Cordova Street, waiting

  we counted months, Time’s dance, each end date auguring

  mouths could function as antennae, lips to teeth, to sac or tissue—

  most bees and aphids, some birds, too, we wrote.

  We revelled in words, signposts, to inquire,
simple as Hallmark greetings.

  Down Robson we strolled, oblivious to newscasts, incoming pervasive

  Outside where once the old library, Mega Virgin CDs and DVDs,

  a busker strummed his blue guitar, and two women, hand in hand.

  We ran the length of the park named after a football player become elected.

  Waiting for curfew, we slid into sleep, under a sun that would harm us.

  Proximal end of—and neglected in the literature.

  Once too often after hours, picked up.

  Arrested by the Investigator. Kept.

  On the Desk of the Investigator

  At these times, the Sun’s illumination,

  warmer than previous—

  We took these notes, measurements forbidden,

  all instruments, loaned.

  Banned from Assembly, we as researchers

  moved to stairwells, backyards, basements—

  Perimeter, demarcated decades:

  hyssop, woodland sage, penstemon—bee nests

  contraband, we gather, those forbidden names:

  the Tribe, Bombini, genus Bombus, Cresson:

  appositus, bifarius, centralis

  scrapped, crumpled, torn, tossed, found,

  our travels to her streets, we recorded

  Pacifica: those allowed those Outside—

  in giant letters, Consortium’s eternal message:

  We can see, in the pulsing places

  Traces of his mordant graces

  Where his tanks grind and crush

  Scornfully, placate the dust—

  Inside Detention Centre C

  The young woman sat rigid after her beating.

  No salve soft enough.

  And wore glasses.

  Outside, Patrol assembled nightly, and regular.

  Our young girls grown up under Rentalsman,

  said Aunty Maria. We held our masks:

  O moon, your sad steps

  Again, the Investigator:

  we longed to feed him

  larkspur, large-leaved lupine,

  wrap him blueweed, viper’s bugloss—

  In the lab, thumb edge to screen, began to decipher.

  And swipe in, left, and again, swipe.

  Rhythm defined an axis.

  Everyone knew to keep their eyes downcast.

  Orders for Surveillance

  the necessary documentation.

  Now an official, native to central

  Informant for Rentalsman, events warning

  heads bent, a cigarette, thumb to index

  finger, not to point, to expound, listening:

  murder, abduction, attributed to,

  underground, away from,

  Perimeter—

  hours the rocks to warm, hours released

  abandoned nests, where bees built their wax cups.

  This plastic is to water

  this framework is to subject

  this agent is human, commodity

  this repercussion, material

  argument—glimpsed, only

  this object, to outside—

  These representations, forbidden.

  Two detainees. And their names

  also effaced.

  Outside Detention Centre C, those boys

  hunted down for small crimes, they scream in hoarse voices:

  IED baby, your bombs, our arms, boom!

  IED baby, inside, outside, boom!

  The Curiously Disappearing Document

  As found by the Investigator inside this old oak box:

  The more he touched the words, the faster they bled to fade

  He’d put the parchment down

  even dropped it back into four dark corners

  He’d pick the parchment up again

  each time his fingers met an edge——

  From the medical records of———in the year of the reign:

  Barrios, camps, Outside Perimeter: lineups, designated areas:

  Tower Juniper, Tower Cedar, Tower Ambrosia

  In Tower Ambrosia, a young girl, her name forgotten,

  no one calls her, she is never spoken to—

  Small build, dexterous, black hair, eyes slanted at their corners.

  She never laughs, head bent most times, building things.

  She calls them Finds. Her teeth, bones, unexamined.

  Afternoons the heat: dust, that acrid curtain, wind whips red,

  she finds places inside culverts where no streams

  fingers fast into hoarded, stolen, saved:

  her six wheeled machine, scrapped aluminum,

  prized at the site where once Safeway,

  The Battle of Kingsway, a song—

  Fireside, she calls her toy.

  There is no one around curious enough to ask—

  Unnamed, without words, a series of lines, her pauses, dot-dash…

  Long miles away, further down the coast, at Consortium Lab JPL

  the designers study data, fascinated, curious and excited. All their codes.

  Taken from the Notebooks of Aunty Maria, After the Science Trials

  Not to be believed.

  Those rumours.

  My idle tales.

  About the good doctor, nary a word.

  Techniques for measuring abundance

  although Apis mellifera L. and leafcutter bees

  Megachile rotundata F., not native

  Not a drop of honey, not a morsel of wax

  —that very day the people of Kingsway began to rise—

  Although not permitted: asters, yellow mustard

  I have taken shrubby veronica, white clover

  I am still able to transmit:

  purple toadflax, sage and calendula

  Perimeter assigns a schedule

  when the rain falls—

  leaves bear holes, burned.

  —and at first light

  they made us watch a thousand suns

  collide———

  Our Testimony About Aunty Maria

  Yes, she was Outsider

  Yes, she was kind to vulnerable others

  Yes, she took risks, defied order, resisted

  Yes, she yearned for something

  Yes, she was willing. And sacrificed.

  Yes, she, curious, made mistakes

  Yes, she stood up, at what cost

  to herself.

  Yes, when asked, we told the Investigator

  In the Before-Time she was a housewife.

  He didn’t believe us.

  To Be Confiscated: Three Hologram Plates

  Plate #1

  We Told

  Ourselves

  We Knew

  This Day

  Would Come:

  Plate #2

  After that first bomb, they tried to help us

  Surveillance drones sent self-care packages

  air quality and running water tests

  proved inconclusive: we restarted though—

  One day a mother ran out to the park

  Look, she said. I’m just tired of all this:

  little by little, we turned things back on

  Ladies from the Patch ’n Mend Brigade laughed

  Each you time you work your faucet, look twice

  Keep your buckets handy, rainwater counts!

  We learned to dig shelters, hoarded supplies

  Those Patch ’n Mends mocked us; these chains will end

  Consortium restored our wireless

  at least our thumbs could scroll androids, and then—

  Plate #3

  A thousand cities, those streets, where houses—

  and inside, closed circles, families, hands clasped

  —and shake, soils into space, water pressure

  on—and tight, tilt and slide, rupture, great waves

  —then the houses fell, and c
ities collapsed

  from deep inside Perimeter, we heard:

  They filled our bee boxes—they slashed our hives—

  we’ll come back—in twenty-five-nine-two-oh

  —and shake, soils into space, water pressure

  on and tight, tilt and slide, rupture, great waves—

  Come ye in, airborne, they whispered, lips bled,

  after, masks and hoods, masks and hoods.

  Song of the Scientists

  Side by side.

  We never dreamt to walk with vagabonds.

  And so, we took rooms in the city and—

  We were reduced to very little

  Months earlier, we drew the tarot (terror) card.

  There was no going back

  We had lost almost everything

  Everything changed and happened at

  Reasons were obscured by fancy

  We told ourselves the worst realizations:

  Dawn: most mornings brought pain

  We knew we were surrounded.

  The only field wherein we might—

  Walking the length, a perimeter

  Gesture as migration

  The men called out to us and we ran away.

  Later in the month, the moon

  Vilified, we looked to the sky

  Only to see a broad-faced blow-up doll

  Full cheeks, thin lips, high heels