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A Spectacle

Well, when the exterminator
was done, a single wasp
stumbled after him,
then turned back to circle
the doomed nest, only
to follow the exterminator
again, who by then had
reached his van, when
the lone survivor,
wobbling between
vengeance and altruism,
exhausted and heroic, fell.

—
Nominated for the National Book Award, the Eric Hoffer Book Award, and nominated three times for the Pulitzer Prize, J.R. Solonche is the author of more than 40 books of poetry and coauthor of another. He lives in the Hudson Valley.

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