Somehow I cannot stomach the slow killing of a bug
the wasp who’s found its way inside
on the wall to the right of me—I shut my eyes and
I drown it before it can beg the yellow air for mercy. I, too,
keep twitching in the waxy unsleeping dawn,
keep fighting a white dream of
carcasshood. It dries in the daytime. I catch it in the mirror with my
doorway, brittle and winged, mouth limp—
like an old self which I carefully sweep away
I am still unlearning the murder instinct.
2025