-
Nest
- University of Iowa Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
4 Nest Sun drops behind the Magnolia & I see the Yellow Jacket’s nest, hung like a horn-of-plenty under the wide leaves—a thread of Wasps spooling out its dark hole mumbling threats— a corner of the garden that’s no longer ours. The man who’s come to kill Wasps wants to save them— “it’s just summer & fall,” he says, “then the Queen dies & things break down, a fall freeze kills the rest . . . a new Queen hides in a woodpile or under the bark of a tree, ’til the summer heat rouses her—” but what’s the end? I want to know. “It’s just one Queen begets a nest,” says the man come to kill Wasps—but I’m already dreaming (of angels & a ranch house far down the coast) a boy who puts his head through windows (& a din that won’t stop shouting), an old woman with her suitcase by the door, threatening & threatened— now he’s losing his nerve, this man who kills Wasps I have to tell him again, “yes, kill them.” ...