cut with a warm knife. the comb releases at the midrib and the two halves fall away with a quiet structural sigh. capped cells stand pale; uncapped cells reveal a slow amber meniscus. the geometry is so regular it seems copied from elsewhere.
in fact the bees do not measure. each cell is built by small bodies pressed against neighbouring cells, and the hexagon emerges from that pressure the way a kept word emerges from being said again. the hive's arithmetic is felt, not calculated.
a slice eaten with the wax is sweeter than a strained spoonful; the kitchen knows this. set on a saucer beside the kitchen mint, near a slow window. the margin bee sometimes ferries a single grain of pollen from this saucer to a book left open across the room.
— ate it standing up. did not regret it. — k.r.