At the exact moment that you begin to read this, a wasp
In the Kalahari Desert appears at the top
Of a large sand hill. Understand how she stops,
Spotting her prey, the crystal sand spider. Alerted,
The spider turns to fight, rising up on his white legs, striking
With rapid blows the blue-black body of the wasp
As she darts forward. He retreats,
Forms an eight-spoked cartwheel and spins
Wildly down the sand.
As you read these lines, she follows quickly,
Catches him on his back by his crystal legs
And straddles his body. The needle of her poison
Tube sinks slowly into the golden raisin
Of his abdomen. She remains poised until he rests.
If you continue, she begins to burrow, throwing
Sand with a fine whisking of her feet. There is a clatter
And dry careening of small rocks and gravel as she kicks
The refuse behind her.
Proceeding down the page: she drags
His heavy body to her tunnel, stuffs it
With the pins of her legs deep into the hole.
His feet draw together at the top like a stringed
Purse. His mandibles, his multiple eyes are frozen.
When you conceive the oval of this word, she
Places her egg like a glistening snowdrop
On the spider’s pulsing frame, climbs out,
Turns backwards, fills the hole to the top.
Look at this stanza. In the orange sun
She is combing the dust from her double wings.
As you finish this sentence to the end, she hurries away,
Head lowered, the practiced wires of her body
Disappearing with the alacrity of the very small,
Over the edge of the broad evening dune.
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