C.K. Williams, “Wasp”

Hammer, hammer, hammer, the wasp
has been banging his head on the window for hours;
you’d think by now he’d be brain-dead, but no,
he flings himself at the pane: hammer, hammer again.

I ease around him to open the sash, hoping
he doesn’t sting me because then I’d be sorry
I didn’t kill him, but he pays me no mind:
it’s still fling, hammer, fling, hammer again.

I’m sure his brain’s safe, his bones are outside,
but up there mine are, too, so why does it hurt
so much to keep thinking—hammer, hammer—
the same things again and, hammer, again?

That invisible barrier between you and the world,
between you and your truth… Stinger blunted,
wings frayed, only the battering, battered brain,
only the hammer, hammer, hammer again.

C.K. Williams will be reading from his latest collection, Wait, tonight at the Free Library in Philadelphia. Other poems in this book include “We” (published in Slate), “Dust” (The New Yorker), “I Hate,” and “Zebra” (both from Poetry).

Then there’s “Rats,” which Williams recited for a Big Think interview, after sharing his thoughts about global warming and the Bush administration…

27 April 2010 | poetry |