This week’s poem, Mark Melnicove’s “Mystery,” describes a brief, seemingly mundane encounter with a small, dead creature found in the basement. I love this poem’s succinct yet meditative storytelling, and how the speaker’s experience opens into a much larger, more beautiful, and less explainable faith.

Melnicove’s books include the art and ekphrastic poetry collection Sometimes Times (with artist Terry Winters), the children’s book Africa Is Not a Country, and The Uncensored Guide to Maine. He is working on a book-length essay about his 40-plus years teaching creative writing in schools as a full-time high school teacher and part-time writer-in-residence. He lives in Dresden.

Mystery

Found dead bumble bee in basement on concrete

floor in front of dehumidifier bought
at Sears before bankruptcy. Reliable

machine, more so than Sears had been.
Didn’t know how bee had been trapped
inside or how long

dead or why, but body—vibrant
blacks and yellows—was perfect, except
for breathlessness. Body lifted

off floor with index finger
and thumb barely
squeezing. Walked outdoors. Believed if fluent

with mystery, life force would bring back bee’s.
Still believe, though bee did not
resuscitate, nestled

inside shadow cast by daisies.

– Mark Melnicove

Megan Grumbling is a poet and writer who lives in Portland. DEEP WATER: Maine Poems is produced in collaboration with the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. “Mystery,” copyright 2024 by Mark Melnicove, appears by permission of the author.