Bumbled In His Zig And Zoom

Sharp flaps of buzz wings hum
busy under my curled fingers.
Hurdling back over quiet spinifex clumps,
now rustled by wild loping steps, I leave
my hunter's stealth behind.

Under camped shade
an ember is stirred by prods
from a damp grass braid.
With cheeks already puffed
I pant a swirl of smoke to tuck
into a funneled hand.

My ear rests, shell-cupped, waiting
for a slower drone. Satisfied,
I blow the smog free to reveal
belly-up, a dozing bee.

Slick fingers twist a single loop of hair
between his tiger stripes, end-flagged
with a leaf to mark his homey path
and open palmed in the hollow of my hand, I wait
with drumming toes for him to stir.

Awake! but bumbled in his zig and zoom
by the whirly turns of tail-tag, he props
and sputters through the rowdy air, crow-flying.

I dodge and weave my footprints through
the scrub, loudly slapping twigs on pinking shins
and leave a trail of backward swirls of dust
as I follow the flap and spin above my head.

Back rested on a shimmied trunk, I flick
a hand through the stingless whine
and with sticky lips smeared by circling tongue,
sit grinning wide below the plundered hive.

Bindi