for Keyla Salvador, Stephen Romero & Trevor Irby
I.
There was a bee

           & it landed clumsily over

a field of poppy & yellow seep monkey.
There’s a gold rush here,

           it believed—
The rustle of golden yarrow & yellow stonecrop

           local to Santa Clara County

           only emboldened it

           to dig through the pollen

& collect plenty its segmented hands can.
The waning afternoon sun meant

           the canopies & tents

           are about to be taken down soon

           & garlands of garlic are to be kept

inside car boots & family vans.
Another summer festival

           about to pass but we haven’t seen

           the last of summer yet:

the bee still has pollen in its hands.
A field of poppy & yellow seep monkey

           glinted gold in an afternoon sun.
II.
We smelled garlic,

           it clung like pollen in our shirts,

& left our breaths sticking to chewing gum.
A child would think vampire hunters

           came to this haunt—
But there were mostly chefs, perhaps a child

           crying from being bitten by

           a gnat or a bee

           dazed, confused landing on

a clove of garlic, sizzling on a frying pan.
Man with a whisker wore a garlic hat,

           garlic ice cream slipped

           between his fingers while a broken

           up clove smiled at visitors snapping

photos from phones that smelled.
Another ordinary family trip,

           another day for the patches of

           checkerbloom & honey suckle

to stand out amidst the yellow,
& for our car to stand out during traffic,

           the smell of garlic rising up as heat.
III.
There was a girl

           with golden yarrow & yellow

stonecrop laurel rustling on her hair.
She smelled garlic right before she

           smelled the gunpowder—
Pacific winds caught a sneeze from the pollen

           the bee dropped from its sac.

           It got startled from

           the spray of bullets flying

around canopies, cars, & garlands of garlic.
A boy that day imagined playing

           the role of vampire hunter,

           but his rifle fell on innocence,

           not on vampires: a girl with a golden

yarrow & yellow stonecrop laurel
was one of them, her ice cream

           melted amidst the afternoon heat.

           Cars going home that day smelled

garlic, but one left an empty seat.
There was a bee & it gathered pollen right

           before, it gathered the gunpowder.