STINGS
Yellow jacket nest
Smack dab in the middle of a meadow
On Granddad’s farm.
Barbs . . . darts . . . arrows . . .
Pierced the flesh in the girl’s shorts,
The tender skin beneath her blouse.
Granny removed her clothes,
Exposed welts bigger than
The budding breasts that shamed the eleven-year-old.
The child had posed before her bedroom mirror,
Paper wadded in her shirt,
Until Mom caught her.
Later her father flung open the door,
Tossed two cups
Cut from a Styrofoam egg carton
And laughed.
His poison pricked her
Worse than a thousand
Yellow jacket stings.
“Stings.” Jimson Weed, vol. XXV, new series vol. 9, no. 1 (Spring 2006).
