HalfHourToKill.Com
  • Home
  • About
  • Submissions
  • Contact
  • Donate
  • Home
  • About
  • Submissions
  • Contact
  • Donate
Picture

I Collided With A Wasp, by Peter Mladinic

8/11/2022

0 Comments

 
Picture
Photo by Luca Maffeis on Unsplash
It’s been a while since I stood in the shade
of a peach tree, a while since I ate
a peach and pared an apple
into slices. You might think I hate fruit
or at least have an aversion to it.

Cantaloupe isn’t high on my list of edibles.
I’d rather a ham & Swiss on rye.
I like rye bread, and weeping willows,
especially on a riverbank. Apple trees,
plums, spruces, elms and oaks

are friends, though I’ve no special tree.
Aspens I came to late in life, also redwoods.
Of the fruit bearers plums are my favorite.
The feel of a plum, the burst of juice
when I bite into a plum are good things.

The bad is sticky hands when juice dries,
but not nearly as bad as a wasp’s sting
on a finger. One night, still light outside,
a wasp and I ran into each other
in a park with lots of elms, a stone throw

from my apartment in an old brick building.
The Pirates were winning the World Series
and, shortly after, a thief jacked my mailbox
and stole my federal tax return.
I wrote to a senator and got compensated.

I wasn’t eating much fruit at the time,
even though I was waiting tables at Valli
Pizza, open twenty-four hours a day.
I liked the tips, my apartment and the city.
There were more trees there than here.

Peter Mladinic’s fourth book of poems, Knives on a Table is available from Better Than Starbucks Publications. An animal rights advocate, he lives in Hobbs, New Mexico, USA. https://petermladinic.com
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    HalfHourToKill.Com is a literary website publishing authors of Flash Fiction and Short Stories in the genres of Fantasy, Horror and Noir. Feel free to submit your Fiction, Poetry and Non-Fiction work to us year round.

    Categories

    All
    Fiction
    Horror
    Noir
    Non Fiction
    Poetry

    RSS Feed

    Archives

    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022

    Picture
Site powered by Weebly. Managed by SiteGround