My Other Wasp Poem

Photo by Anna Evans on Unsplash

I’m worried about wasps. My father was born
today in 1947, except it wasn’t today, it was 1946.
They can make hives in wood, and the deck is wood.

I’m on the deck. I have intense nostalgia
for the late 1970s, 1976–1979. I was born in October
of 1979. But my parents couldn’t afford

to replace all of their furniture, plus
they liked it and the clothes they’d bought
before I was born, so I grew up in 1976

in the early 1980s. I squirted one with poison spray—
there was only one wasp in it, a very small hive,
but a big wasp, and I stood like the can

said, a few feet away. The dog is freaking out now,
barking back at some other dog who sometimes barks
back. And I sprayed up into the little opening

where our lonely homemaker had started building.
I think my mother might have been happiest
in the late 1970s, and it was that happiness

with which she lit the first years of our family.
The light in the back hallway in our house
was always dim, jaundicing. It scared me

but I wanted to get to the TV. The dog is prowling
around the deck like she’s desperate for news
from the hospital. We were always waiting for news.

The hospital would call in the evening with the white
blood cell count to gauge the infection. I’ve never
been stung. My mother lived 48 years and was never

stung—she was terrified. I’m 43.
I’m not as scared as she was—I think I know a way
to brace myself. It’s worked before.

And there’s been no more activity around that hive,
but I keep seeing wasps. I guess they must
live somewhere else? My dad was probably

happiest in the 1960s, in his late teens.
He was handsome and could water-ski. I think his dad
hadn’t left yet. My mom was probably happiest when

she was little, when she and my aunt got
the one bedroom and her parents slept on a fold-out
couch. My grandmother was 96 when she died. She met

my son. She couldn’t remember Brenda’s name, called her
“your bride.” My aunt, my mother’s sister,
just turned 80 last month. My dad’s sister killed

herself at 48, which was also how old my mom was.
Can that be right? I could check. It’s late. Wasps
are quiet and still at night. I don’t need to worry. My dad’s

forgetting his memory. I keep buying late ’70s
Sonny Rollins LPs off eBay. Awful but cheerful.
I put the dog inside—she was freaking out.

I don’t know how to stop this—I’d like to. Memory
is painful. Brace myself. I have nothing else to say
about wasps. It’s August fourteenth, 2023.