Smithereens Press Chapbooks SP14 - The Lighthouses by Daragh Breen | Page 9

In a small hole in the ground
wasps made a paper skull,
congealing in miniature weirs
as they piled over each other.
To increase the tight cavity space,
the growing nest like a cranium
pressing against flesh,
the wasps carried water
from a nearby puddle,
secreted it against the earthen wall,
then devoured the softened soil
and deposited it outside.
Hundreds of wasps clambered
about the moistened wall,
a shoal tight in a dragnet,
a skull lodged tight in the dark.