I forgot to tell the bees he was dead, 
was why. Something that looked like a man  
  
looked sly over my left shoulder from the sky.  
He spoke in beetle clicks, in mothdust.  
  
He said pig slash he said mayfly wings.  
Made air snakeskin, lid-wind, till stars  
  
were things that looked like stars but weren’t  
and the yellow stains of the world all came  
  
through my pores. Where you leave a dead  
snake its mate comes and curls and I forgot,  
  
I’m sorry, I forgot. Pap was a snake. Pap  
was snakes and also their mates.  
  
It came of looking at the moon that way. 
It came of being dead and wanting to stay.