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 the woman's shawl

toward her neck.

Her nape, so exposed, so supple

doesn’t know what’s coming.

But I do.

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 his 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 legs

angle and dangle down.

I follow it with my eyes.

The tiny wingèd payload,

like a prayer, rises

toward the hive of light,

the hollow above our heads.

The sight of this flight

is the sermon I see.