Water-walking wasp, Euodynerus crypticus: Clever, but trivial? A little like magic in that you cannot quite figure out the difference between pain and illusion. Pain level: 1 —Justin O. Schmidt, “Pain Scale for Stinging Insects”
1
Night screech Startle, the heart-race after a human
scream. Then silence and only suspicion of
a crime. Perhaps a rabbit
has flown off with an owl.
Gas-tank light Imagine yourself yesterday,
hesitating, then driving on, calculating
incorrectly the momentum of loss.
Two months to the Caribbean, / our hold crammed tight / with cargo still breathing. // In Lisbon after eight weeks in the bowels / of a slave ship: samples of carmine and indigo. . . .