Sticky July – wasps
in the greenhouse.
We dragged out the vacuum
and sucked up
their hard dark bodies;
stuffed a rag in
to the nozzle,
so they would not crawl back
out.
See them, covered
in dust, climbing over each other
in darkness.
I dreamt they escaped
while we were sleeping and swarmed
on the children – I woke again
and again
standing in the hallway clutching
the blue quilt in my arms,
shivering with sweat.
In the dark, it took
a long time
to know which way
the truth lie,
and I had to go
and touch
their chests,
wait
for the breathy up
and down,
it was a long
time
Adrie Lester writes and works with herbs in western MA. Her work has previously appeared in Peregrine, Albatross, The Essential Herbal, Poetry Breakfast.com, and Ibbetson Street Review. Her poem “In the Liminal” was awarded second place in the Robert P. Colleen Poetry Competition. She studied creative writing at Bennington College and the SC Governor’s School for the Arts & Humanities.