I moved out of Michigan! All summer there was a power line across West Spring Lake Road that had a growing bee hive. It's gotten bigger and heavier and, if not for any of the other indisputable reasons, I thought I ought to leave before that hive fell on my car and set the bees ablaze and panicked, wondering why one day their world was fine and one day it was falling.
Staying in Michigan would mean: the falling bee hive, the ripening fig tree, the rot of suburban trash, the kernel in my stomach overtaking my spirit, the lawn growing faster than my father could possibly cut it,
the jingling of the cat's bell growing louder into shrieks, my legs sticking to the kitchen chairs.
Near the old house there isn't one leaf I don't resent, not one deer I don't pity. When the hive finally falls, do you think I will feel it in Chicago? When I am here in the wintertime for Christmas, will I remember their home? Will I be silent for their fall? I am not sure.
my empty Michigan room