Honey Bee Machine

Artwork by Jenna Tse, staff artist

Pink petals, dusted

in pollen, stick faintly

to the wings of a wild softness,

which functions for the

sake of efficiency.

A flower

and a bee

and a machine.

Amber, ovally eyes

already drip with honey,

when its software

informs its antennae

to smell inborn data.

A bee

and a machine.

A stinger wrapped in

wires, exposed and

unfearful on a child’s

palm; the weight of

the present was enough.

A machine.

Since when did nature

taste this samely sweet?

A family of hunger fed

by a numbered species

of scientific empathy.

A machine and

We are nursed by a fossil

of the past within the future.

We must harvest, and we must eat.

Inspired by the digital print art piece Robot Bee, 2017, by Jeff Schmuki