Waspish
Trying to write a poem that wouldn’t be written
I was disturbed
when a late-night wasp flew in the window
and posed a moral problem.
Invited by the glow of the lamp
he carved the air of my room,
crashing into windows and walls,
cursing in short-pitched zeds.
Between collisions he circled my head
wings beating like a demented hummingbird,
diving and swooping in vicious arcs
with all the menace of a runaway train.
The black bands of his body
seemed to swell with anger,
his yellow hoops screamed defiance
at the unknown architect of his cell.
Sometimes there is a grey area
between right and wrong,
this time it was black and yellow.
Unable to take any more
I put us both out of misery and
stung him gently with The Shorter Oxford Dictionary.
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