DANIELLE HANSON

Hatching

We came home to a bedroom
humming of a dozen newly-hatched wasps.
 
Outside Spring was stretching, raising
its arms into air.
 
We slammed the door, searched
the internet for remedies, frantic.
 
Spring was unstoppable, gorgeous with
yellow pollen, temperatures already 80.
 
Each wasp was sucked into the vacuum’s accordion tube,
wings pulled backwards, the moment of struggle was over.
 
Then the air filled with absence.
 
The songs of birds everywhere. You can’t walk
a dozen feet without running into one, cobwebs of sound.
 
Inside the vacuum the wasps crawl,
dust covered, slowing dust to dust.
 
Damp earth sprouts every kind of blooming weed and
each day, a dozen more from the vent, Gaia birthing winged Titans. 

Danielle Hanson is a poet who strives to create and facilitate wonder. She is the author of the poetry collections Fraying Edge of Sky, winner of the Codhill Press Poetry Prize, and Ambushing Water, Finalist for the Georgia Author of the Year Award. Her poetry has been the basis for Haunting the Wrong House, a puppet show at the Center for Puppetry Arts. She curated a poet/artist collaboration show Alloy at Arts Beacon in Atlanta, where she’s Poet-in-Residence. Danielle is a Writer-in-Residence at Georgia Writers and Poetry Editor for Doubleback Books. She teaches poetry at the University of California at Irvine. More about her at daniellejhanson.com.