Hornet's Nest
- Hornet's Nest
Gray paper sack full of venom:you've watched its dark door since the lastblackberry brambles loosed their gripon jagged crimson leaves rimedwith silver, revealing the soft nestsuspended from a slender barof lightweight hooks and needles.Now, though, when you comewith clippers, bear it home to hangin triumph from your ceiling—it looks different now. Swollen largeas a cow's heart, ringed with barbwirethorns, it pulses gravity likesome clouded moon, the blind black holeat the bottom a wordless mouth.First the earth, then its glitteringchain of satellite trash beginsto realign, to circle aroundthis homemade house, this labyrinthof the female, of makers, one ofthe endless ominous softlythrobbing hearts of everything.
CATHERINE CARTER's collections of poetry include The Swamp Monster at Home, published in 2012, The Memory of Gills, published in 2006, and the forthcoming Larvae of the Nearest Stars, all from Louisiana State University Press. Her work also appears in The Best American Poetry 2009, Orion, Poetry, and Ploughshares, among others. She lives in Cullowhee with her husband and teaches at Western Carolina University.
