The Greatest Show on Earth

The bees have begun tuning their violins, raking their wings along the sleep-filled strings as I sit in the parking lot peeling stickers off of half-priced books. The roses are unfurling their red carpets, the ants are single-filing their way across the dirt— as if millenia of evolution has instilled in them a sense of propriety. Soon the bees will find their starting notes, soon the birds will lift their voices, soon the ants will fill the soil like an auditorium, and I will lift my head from my book Just in time to see the sun framing your body, a pre-bloom dandelion perfecting its pirouette between your thumb and second finger, a smile lifting your face like a curtain.