[Draft]

 

For all its buzzing bravado, throbbing harbor

of a thousand stings slow-swinging 

from the magnolia like a swollen epiglottis, removal 

is violent but quick enough: click 

of barrel rested on the windowsill, 

surge of the will and just one round 

of buckshot till the black cloud is released

like a let wound. The more imminent threat

platoons with the first warm days of February 

and daffodils, its heavy thrum matching

the low frequency of earth-thaw, possibility 

of garden. It’s they, in a scattershot 

of little sawdust piles disappearing 

with the breeze, who infiltrate the lines, 

  

introducing the house to its knees as the occupant

dozes, double-barrel across his lap.