Ila's Recipe

(A new poem that is still kind of fragile and unformed...)

The sweet and bitter mix that draws
the moths down from the blossom,
a killing secret whispered into the pink idea
of an apple born with worm in fall.

I may be too late.

I am talking to her:  The woman who hung
the windsweapt jug and twine
under the same trees for 60 years,
the twine now part of the branch.
She explains the equal parts
sugar and vinegar, a single banana peel.
And I can't listen, picturing how to hang
the rope and jar beneath the life
of my heart, drawing the moth from the blossom
because one year there might be fruit
cut open and clean
if I am brave enough
to acknowledge the bitter,
the sweet.  That some are moth
and some are bee.