Now that the daffodils have died, it’s the time
of irises, an elegy for cherry blooms, the three-
hundredth day of bombs, bullet-proof vests
cutting back the climbing rhododendron
from the eaves so the mice won’t follow the branches
inside, then a dirge, a requiem for the dead
as when a wasp buzzes our heads, my hand
holding what was its house
of saliva and paper, and if in slow motion
I watch the ladder wobble as you wildly swat
them away, of course I imagine
their insect anguish as when today
we turned off, turned on again the news
drones tracking the progress
of the assault rifles and armored trucks
onlookers with our hands to our mouths
holding the ladder, I hear
the beech trees’ retreat, our small pond
wavering under unforecast rain
and the mother who finds the blue balloon
her boy blew up for his sister
lying limply beside his bed
how carefully she unlooses the knot
brings the opening to her mouth, inhales
Sarah Wetzel is the author of three poetry collections: The Davids Inside David, from Terrapin Books, River Electric with Light, which won the AROHO Poetry Publication Prize and was published by Red Hen Press, and Bathsheba Transatlantic, published by Anhinga Press. She has a chapbook, Elegies of Herons, forthcoming from Black Sunflowers Poetry Press. When not shuttling between her two geographic loves—Rome, Italy and New York City—Sarah is Publisher and Editor at Saturnalia Books and a PhD Candidate in Comparative Literature in the CUNY Graduate Center in New York City. www.sarahwetzel.com