Poems November 2021
The wasp in the lamp
A dried wasp casts
its shadow—thorax
cinch-waist, sting
—against frosted glass.
Pinned like Icarus
to a globe of white,
its sere lobes fold
into elegant origami.
The year past has
found its cenotaph.
Ghosts waft in
the wind, swarming
into sight, revealing
themselves above
the houses, borne
on filament wings.
—David Yezzi
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This article originally appeared in The New Criterion, Volume 40 Number 3, on page 30
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