Letter to a Wasp
 


Dear wasp,
you big cat of the insect world
in your stunning tiger stripes,
you stung me once, no chance
to sting me twice –
 
you lie now, slaughtered ,
on the carpet near the windowsill.
Every day I come to look at you
and gloat: how silent now, how still.
 
And yet I also see how beautiful you are:
how elegant your body’s arc,
how miniature your thin black legs,
how glass-of-mirror-like your wings –
 
how useless now your sting –
at least that’s what I’d supposed
but when I accidentally trod on you,
how you stung between my toes!
 
How it hurt, and how I swore:
potent still,
although you are no more.

Gill McEvoy
 
If you have any thoughts about this poem,  Gill McEvoy would be pleased to hear them