Collar of wasps

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COLLAR OF WASPS

I could have been a droning “caller of wasps” perhaps?

I just invented that job, I like the sound of it. — Neko Case

The frantic rush of the morning and all

its tasks got to be too much. I had

to send myself out to the rain. And because

the mud portends the spring I went in deep

up to my knees, wallowing, aboriginal

in the earth that bore me. I know my voice

is more raven rasp than songbird but

I’m not so out of tune as out

of place. My ancestors would have built

a shrine to the likes of me, brought offerings

of honeycomb, made me space to work

in smoke and poetry and dreaming.

But they might have sunk me in the river,

too, with a boulder lashed around my waist. Left

me to make an amulet of blood

and bone, my own blue eye for a nazar.

So I’ll live here, in the water, in the snow-

fed chill, my patience a whittling knife slowly

carving down a mountain. My hair

uncombed, my ankles uncrossed,

my handbag full of subversions. A pen,

a needle, a still-smoking lightening bolt. Try

to tame me with a corset, a marriage,

the yoke of my unrepentant womb. Even

if I speak softly, it is to curse anyone

who dams my freedom or clips my wings. Tie

around my neck a collar of wasps, saying, “That

will keep her in place. A million angry stingers

aimed at the jugular.” Bring it

and I will wear it like a jeweled breastplate,

my vestments of battle, my voice still rising

from the primordial tremor and buzz.