THE SERMON

I am a child

in my Sunday best,

in church, in a pew

behind a woman

with a wasp on her back.

The yellow and black body

crawls on her shawl

toward her neck.

The nape, so exposed, so supple

doesn’t know what’s coming,

but I do.

Will it make it there?

Will she jump when it touches her flesh?

Will it sting her?

Do I want it to?

Do I know?

These thoughts run through me

like a venom

as the minister at the pulpit

reads the homily—his voice,

escaping from its vestments,

is a buzzing I can hardly hear.

There’s a flicker, all at once,

in front of me, a fluttering.

The little body

lifts and bobs, ascends.

The spindly yellow legs

angle and dangle down.

I follow it with my eyes.

The tiny wingèd payload

rises toward the hive of light,

hollow above our heads.

This sight

is the sermon I saw.