Poetry Drawer: Buzz by Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois

I grabbed a can of wasp spray
from my wife’s hand
She was a farm girl and stronger than me
She grabbed the can back and hit me in the head with it

Wasps had colonized the attic of our farmhouse
the one my granddad had built in 1918
and our love was being overwhelmed
by the difference in our reactions

I found the wasps’ buzzing comforting
consoling
I heard messages in their drone
messages designed for me alone
telling me about the true nature of the universe

My wife said that if the noise didn’t stop
she was going to fall off the wagon—
was I too stupid to understand?

Yet now that she’d hit me with the can of wasp spray
she couldn’t use it
She had created an inner barrier
that she didn’t understand
but was unable to surmount

She went outside without saying anything
got into her old Pontiac
and headed down the road
I knew she was going to the meth house

Whether she was going to do meth
or just fuck the meth maker
I didn’t know

But I couldn’t pursue her
I was too engaged
in listening to the wasps’ messages

Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois has had over fourteen-hundred of his poems and fictions appear in literary magazines in the U.S. and abroad. He has been nominated for numerous prizes, and was awarded the 2017 Booranga Writers’ Centre (Australia) Prize for Fiction. His novel, Two-Headed Dog, is based on his work as a clinical psychologist in a state hospital, is available for Kindle and Nook, or as a print edition. His new poetry collection was published in 2019, The Arrest of Mr Kissy Face. He lives in Denver, Colorado, USA.

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