Well I never!
Is that a stinger –
stuck in my arm, no less?
I resent this unjust ingress
into my innocent flesh.

Did I wrong the creature?
“Not guilty, Your Honour!
It was not I
who breached the rules of cohabitation.
You will surely concur, indeed, that
I am a victim of violation; hence
my righteous indignation.”

And yet, truth be told,
(the sting now subsiding)
I would be hard pressed deciding
whether my greater distress
lay not in the bee’s weaponry,
but in her fatal, ill-judged temerity.

J.G.