"Goodbye, Radio Girl"

This is a poem that my friend Betsy Wheeler wrote. It was originally published in issue #16 of Forklift, Ohio: A Journal of Poetry, Cooking, & Light Industrial Safety.

Betsy Wheeler
Goodbye, Radio Girl

           for Kate Hall

Your pink sweater— how it fits.  Your questions—
their wings, and their whys.  All of this is remarkable
but what we remember most is the way
your eyes went there and there. Your questions
and the bees acting like ladies on lunch.
Lucky bees and your questions are numerous.
Here is an answer held to my chest.
How about all this sunshine— it makes your sweater
seem all candyish and lamby.
Eyes up here, Radio Girl.
The most memorable part was the sheer number of all of you
out there and your fluttering hands.
How many of us there are.
Next question.
Her sunglasses are a reflection of your faces
in the crowd, her highlights, yes.
Come here a moment and mind the steps up.
It's like a moving picture but everybody's smoking and nobody's eating.
Laughter, sure, but mostly in the lower registers. 
Mammalian.   How'd those bees find us again,
I'm sorry what did you say?  The answer to that is sometimes
but I wish it was never or always when they open the snack coffin.
I've forgotten my name but I know my place.
Your earlobes, Radio Girl, they seem important.
Or is it your mouth. Your pink sweater.  The way you fit here in floral.
There's a story here and I'm feeling ready to tell it. 
This is the way of the tribes.  Before we were here
we were elsewhere and where we are going is next,
so, Goodbye, Radio Girl! Goodbye to your holdings, our voices,
the bees and how they swarmed was the answer.