Sonnet for Him or Me or the Wasps

by Emily Tracy

He always used to say girls shed like dogs

When you left evidence that you were there,

And you would leave a trail like Spanish Moss,

On oak, you’d shade his bedroom with your hair.

The Georgia summers never came or went

Unsung by buzzing wasps around your head,

You sweet, wreathed thing. You holy wasps’ nest bent

In girl shape, bent into his summer bed.

And you were gone by June, unmissed, unstung,

Unlifted, all that hair from off your sweat;

Your twenty-first hot Georgia summer hung

Around your shoulders, long and loose and wet.

You will not cut your hair despite the heat.

He will not fall, a dead wasp, at your feet.