He can’t entertain much
the neighbors have decided
over local beer and foreign wine
the wasps have taken over his carport.
Which is true, but the wasps
don’t bother anyone much.
The man—shirts stretching
at the gut, brush-cut less brushy—
snaps open an aluminum lawnchair
he remembers since he was a kid
and stretches uncomfortably in shorts
to watch the insects.
Atmosphere is a soup of insects
and birds swimming in a broth
called air. The man is a diver
settled with the weights of cell phone,
cold whiskey, and a wife
who is doing something vague at shops.
The wasps come and go, laded
with mud or toxined spiders
in which to lay an egg. The mud
can’t come from the nearby creek
now held in place with a concrete cast.
From watered gardens, then? The runoff
from young man’s love
for all things masculine transferred to his car?
Somewhere, a sprinkler swishes and ticks.
Somewhere, a puddle catches the light
between slick muddy banks.
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