The Queen
Thinking it a new source of food, the scouts
Bring it back to the Queen. Led under guard
To her chamber, they bow down before her,
The poison clenched in their jaws. They are already
Dying, but mistake the feeling for the joy
Of finally having been allowed to see her,
She who, for some reason, I imagine lying
On her back on a plush velvet bed, surrounded
By those she has come to trust. Of these scouts
The queen is rightly wary, suspicious of what
They’ve brought her, the way any human queen
Would be suspicious of the lukewarm plate
An unknown servant sets down before her.
But at last she beckons for one of them
To approach her and from his mouth to hers
Passes the delectable nectar he has brought her
From afar, unlike anything she has ever tasted.
Later, after her body has been consumed,
Long after the colony has died in its thousands,
His corpse will be indistinguishable
From the myriad others. But it was him,
The one she beckoned to, the one who carried her
Death in his jaws, who she truly loved.