Honeybee

When the male enters a female honeybee

and manages climax

his genitals explode

and break off his body.

It is the most dedicated orgasm in the universe.

His penis stoppers her

like Ali Baba’s boulder at the entryway to a cave of treasure:

she’s sealed with a spell.

Having sired their tragic progeny

and prevented another from entering her

the male bleeds out

and dies in the grass. This really happens.

So it is at the Möbius Strip Club of Grief.

Off-hours, the dead wait at the center of the room, sitting backward in chairs,

lounging in nipple-tassels,

reading goodbye letters that’d been tucked into their caskets.

The disco ball in the center of the room

is like a flamboyant, pockmarked moon

spinning silver acne over the dancing dead.

The pollen is aching.

When it’s time,

the competition is fierce here in the air.

25,000 males assemble and compete for a single, deadly orgasm.

Progeny is everything here.

Our motto is:

I’d rather be dead than share you with another.