Poem In Which The Wasps Want You

their wings, done and then undone,
hourglass abdomens sexily gloved
in faux-fur, satin, like thimble-sized
vibrating Marilyn Monroes

they drone above the black jam
of swatted, smeared brethren
to butt their massing face
against the fuchsia glass and catch you

–you, whose saliva speckles
the Fanta can they’d thrill to drown in,
whose fist, slick with snow pollen
from an ice-cream Everest, looms
in fever dreams, split baubles,
their conical voyeur eyes

the garden is a bathhouse
pitch-thick with swarms masticating
on thoughts of you, your perfumed spritz

your Polaroid sweats in the nest
of which their boundless enamour is made

Matt Haigh