Wasps | All for the love of you
Rent from DeepDyve- Wasps | All for the love of you
Wasps
Last spring, wasps took overthe bluebird house. Squattersgnawing out the entrywayfor the wood and saliva soupneeded for nests. Goodtenants they were too—clean, quiet, busy: each eggnestled in its hexagonal crib,coverlets tucked and tended to.
When the birds arrived, flashingtheir blue entitlement, they tookone look and left. We too stayed clear.Some goings-on one shouldn’tmess with. Motherhood for instance.
Trouble is, that holy state doesn’tlast. Lately my son has fallenfor a 1990 bmw, revving her upto race her. He’s installed a rollcage, head and neck restraints,wears flame-retardant glovesand a Nomex body suit lest shecombust and finish him off good.
This is the child whose pajamascaught fire when he was seven,the child whose layers of skin [End Page 114] I watched curl back blackfrom the galloping edge of burning,the gleaming front line of terror.And now, just when I need it, my oldmother-song of Like hell you willdoesn’t work anymore. What pedestalis left for me to stand on? Whatgood are eyes in back of the headwithout the advantage of clout?
He agrees, his laugh ringing me roundthe way it always did: seed of myNovember, brown-eyed dearest of boys.
I think I need lessons from the wasps,for am I not also maker of paper nests,wrought and tended to? And do I notalso feed on nectar and fallen fruit?O Queen of buzz and sovereign care,when does one stop gnawing at the heart’s hole—that entryway, that mother price? That sting.
All for the love of you
On the day Daisy just plaindied, Kenneth Haydon of Benton“left earth to shake hands with Jesus”and La’Kesha Walker, youngestof six, “passed through the gatesof Heaven.” Whether angels sangor if there were hugs, backslapping,or kisses on both cheeks à la française,I don’t know, but I tell you,it was a great day here on Earth [End Page 115] for the Paradise Casket Company,who recorded record profits from allthat fancy travel going on. But Daisy,she went sterling, unadulterated, her sonholding her hand and singing her out.The song, from America’s old songbook,for the oldest love story in the world.Mother and child. Daisy and son.Never mind his sixty years and her ninety-four.Never mind the platitudes about a long lifewell lived. It was mother and sonall over again. Michelangelo’s Pietàrepeated, and if he could, gray hair, PhDand all, he’d have crawled into the cold marbleof her lap if only to be close to the wombhe’d come from, that day sixty years agowhen the two of them, laboring all night,rode the high hills of pain, she behind,he in front, head down and coming,the way he is now—pedaling hardinto that first cold slap of mourning. [End Page 116]
Alice Friman’s sixth full-length collection is The View from Saturn (lsu Press). Her previous collection is Vinculum (LSU Press), for which she won the 2012 Georgia Author of the Year Award in poetry. She is a recipient of a 2012 Pushcart Prize and is included in Best American Poetry 2009. Friman lives in Milledgeville, Georgia, where she is poet-in-residence at Georgia College. Her podcast series, Ask Alice, is sponsored by the Georgia College mfa program and can be seen on YouTube.
