Severance in the Old Barn

Tucked thickly between two beams
I found a vespine roost left vacant
and sustained by one limpet foot,
paper-like and fading gray.

Winged things once worked to
form the tessellated nest, drumming an endless
thrum as from a great throat. The wasps were motes
with their own direction- moving
with a purpose that made dumb the dust visible
in the light between the beams above.

A singular wasp crawled slowly
toward a hole and I pressed
a rock firmly to its back, dividing reaction
from reason. Then, as I watched,
the orange wasp- severed-
crawled into the sanctum of its own sacrificial
spittle, an empty nest save one half.