~PAMELA GARVEY~
THE WASP NEST GROWING INSIDE
OUR WINDOW FRAME
It's eating the
air. Cell by
cell,
tiered hexagons take over,
tumorous
and hollow,
and still I forbid you to
destroy
them.
I clean the glass over and
over
to remove all smudges and dust
from my display case for
the queen's
brood. I do it
to glide my finger over
the nest
down to the thorax and
pinched waists
of the wasps who, breaking
from
their labor, crawl along the pane
and finally fly through
the screen's
tear
and away from me,
trembling at the
ledge.
How cold they seem: their
bronze-black
flesh
guarded by that smooth
pin, source
of poison and
offspring.
The blessing of winged
life:
to have wisps of
limbs,
to hatch into a haze of
black flight
breathing spring
with all its seeds and
blooming
colors.
I retreat to your body, as
if your
embrace
could stop the choke of
pollen
or slow the yearly
thaw
that cues the queens to
leave their
nests
and roam the flowers for
mates.
All that fathering
and so few queens.
Is that
the privilege
or the price of her
royalty?
Does she even notice
me,
so close to her kingdom I
fog the
pane with my breath?
Would she lead an attack
against
me,
wait for me at the door or
wait
for a forgetful slip÷
a tired hand cracking the
window,
my wrist exposed to her
nuns
whose sterile stingers
only hunt
and burn:
the attack always
plural,
arms pocked with fires
under the
skin. Such fierce mothering,
it frightens you.
Touch the
glass, ticking with their heat, all of it
from these virgin
mothers
who warm the eggs by
flapping their
flight muscles . . .
warmer . . . warmer . . .
lean my
body into the window,
slide your hand down to my
pulse,
a pull
toward the pane. Let
me taste
the sweat of your fear.
When I can feel
your heart aching against
my back,
why search for the
good?
Why defend my
creatures
who'd be bare without
their needles
of venom,
who can't even boast the
yellow
beauty of bees,
not even the hum that
warns?
Because wasps are quiet.
I love them. They
are my darkness.
© by Pamela Garvey
