A.M. O’Malley

DOOMED WASP

I doomed a wasp,

closed her up

in between two

window panes.

She is trapped

but doesn’t know it.

No one noticed

my mother’s silence

until she broke it.

I think about

her heaving body

the condition it is

now—ash.

My mother is

ash on a shelf and

I’m still breathing,

in a chair in

Memphis, Tennessee,

watching a wasp

with elegant

wings, perfect for flight

spindle legs

her twitching

antennae and I wish

I could die too

and I know

that I can.