The wasp and I have arrived at a truce. I no longer threaten it with a newspaper or insecticide; it makes sure to avoid me on its way into the hole it found in the apron of the table at which I eat my meals on the verandah. Wikipedia leads me to believe it’s a potter wasp. I can’t tell its gender or if it has dropped—or is inspecting—larvae in that tunnel, yet I’ve become protective of the family or the idea of it. I sprayed Baygon into the hole when I first spotted it. I regret that now and hope the wasp’s visits signal that any vespine offspring in the cave survive. The wasp arrives often, circles my arms and legs and lands on the apron before crawling into the hole. Some weeks ago when we first noticed each other, I thought I might use a bit of steel wool to block the hole as soon as the wasp entered it. Even had we never bonded, how could I have considered inflicting such horror on an animal that never threatened me? It is the reputation of the wasp, the terror I was taught as a child to feel in the presence of its forebears, that engendered my awful desire to imprison and to kill. Never again. The wasp and I are here for each other.

 

my big brother once

gave me a rabbit’s foot—

charm less