The apiary hums a warped lullaby,
each hive is a cathedral of wax and ruin.
The bees return at dusk, their bodies
stippled with flecks of corroded steel,
their wings glazed with a substance
that crackles like cellophane in the keeper’s palm.

Entry 47: The honey has turned viscous, black.
When held to the ear, it mumbles the names
of towns erased from the maps—
not in human voices, but in the drone
of a thousand dead worker bees.

He finds the queen curled like a fossil
in her chamber, her abdomen distended,
birthing not larvae but smooth, silver beads
that roll toward the corners of the hive,
clicking like teeth in a skull.

At dawn, the combs glow faintly,
their hexagonal chambers now filled
with miniature pistons, their movements
perfectly synchronized to a rhythm
no living thing should recognize.

The keeper’s hands shake as he writes:
The flowers remember. They always do.
Their roots are dreaming of revenge.

—Pamphlet Distributed in Coastal Zones—

Step 1: Documentation
Photograph your home.
The salt will devour the images
within weeks, but the act itself
may placate whatever rises
from the Marianas Trench.

Step 5: Waterproofing
Caulk the windows with a mixture
of ground oyster shells
and your grandmother’s wedding ring.
The sea respects sacrifice.

Step 9: Navigation
The stars will lie.
Follow instead the glow
of jellyfish trapped in church steeples.
Their pulses spell shoreward
in a dialect of bioluminescence.

Final Note: When the waves
finally take you, open your mouth.
Let the water rename you.
Your bones will make excellent coral.
Your skull will house
the next generation of anglerfish.
This is called legacy.