I line up the equipment: a red flimsy fly swatter, more fan than flame. A plastic quart container, no lid. & a terry cloth towel, recently laundered.
I set them outside the shut bedroom door in a darkened hallway. I’m still drowsy with sleep, woken from a dream about a Chinese restaurant & rats to the early morning clink of a stinger against single pane glass. Third time this week but first time it has roused me. I roll over
& out of bed, putting on my glasses to ensure I don’t stumble straight into damage. On my way out the door, I close it—better to contain the chaos, better to wake up the rest of the way on the couch as I consider my comprehensive strategy to defend my shelter.
Hours later, after coffee & waffles, after the car & the gym, I return to the scene, to the equipment already placed by the shut bedroom door. I open it a crack,
the mud dauber wasp sits, legs splayed, high on the wall. I can’t reach him there &, even if I did, he’d get lost in the furniture during his plummeting spiral. I shut the door, retreat again to the couch, bide my time.
Hours later, after toast & a smoothie, after emails & a poem, I return, again, to the scene. Same equipment. Only two hands so I choose the swatter & the container. The towel is back-up if something else fails.
The wasp’s finally at the window in an enviable position. A friend calls. I put him on speaker. He is instructed to offer encouraging words. The dauber inches down the window well toward the bottom sill as I steady the swatter. I swing
& make contact. Requisite squealing commences. I can’t catch a wasp without making a big deal of it. The friend on the phone asks for a play-by-play. I maneuver the flaccid swatter around the stunned body & paintbrush him into the container. Easy
but my heart still races. I wish there was another way for us both. But, instead it’s this, all summer long: to the hallway, the living room, the kitchen, the back deck. Over the railing, release.
—————
Night pinks the sky of another June without you. On this shelf, things decay slowly.
Under the awning of our too-active imaginations, we once painted a world where we could endlessly shelter. I want to return there but I can’t dream it without you.
Inside the alcove of our two gentle hearts, we softened the urgency to have all the answers. I want to ask more of you but you’ve left me, alone.
Nothing breaks down without giving itself back to the earth, decomposing into dirt rich with the selves who were lost in the letting.
What can grow in the soil of a futured heart? Shell-rich & sewn with fragments of another life. We can’t have each other so it must be another blooming.
