Hygienic Bee

Once engineering’s finished,

They’ll have bred a honeybee

Capable of detecting

Varroa destructor mites

And flinging them from the hive.

These will be hygienic bees.

How the frame of reference

Transforms the significance

Of anything. Hygienic

Thoughts have been advocated

By religions for ages.

Root out pestiferous doubts

And fling them from the hive mind

Before the hive collapses.

Now shift from thoughts to people,

From people to peoples. See?

Now from people to species.

Maybe you’re hygienic bees.

Maybe Earth’s been breeding you.

Maybe you’re destructor mites.

Maybe the Earth’s the disease,

And unseen aliens strive

To breed hygienic planets,

And Earth’s been flung from the hive.