The Wasp’s Nest By Wren Jones

The Wasp’s Nest 

Plant stems and wood fibers mesh with waters,
thin grey sheets emerge from yellow and black
queens, gift wrapping precious oval sack, 
as hexagon wombs, birth larvae daughters.

Insects caught, chopped, and fed to first girls 
who share their sweet syrup with hungry queen, 
girls birth boys, boys birth work, new wasps seen
over and over, thousands of lives unfurl.

Then empty of sweetness and life, they’re gone,
a paper mache shadow left swinging 
from a branch all winter. Spring winds lifting, 
dropping; smash their world on the ground.

I want to be like wasps, creating life
and sweetness in the sky, to disappear.

Wren Jones is a poet and outdoor enthusiast who loves adventuring around Canada. She has studied writing at The University of Toronto and currently at Simon Fraser University. Her YA novel, The Real Dealio, was a finalist in the 2021 CANSCAIP National Writing for Children contest. Several of her poems are published or forthcoming in The Embrace of Dawn, Drunk Monkeys and Untethered.