Ronald Moran, Wasps
Ronald Moran
WASPS
I suppose, sometimes I did not control my
actions
or demeanor or whatever separates mature
adults
from students while I taught English full-time
at
Clemson University, during a five-year period
when
I held no administrative post to supplement
my
salary and, hence, I must have thought I could
act
like a goon with impunity in the safety of my
office,
to free whatever demons were trying to run
my life––
as common as it was then––which means
little
to inner or outer demons, who relish our flaws.
One spring
a swarm of wasps invaded the corner, eighth-floor
windows
of Strode Tower, my home, and since the P Plant
wanted
nothing to do with wasps, it was up to my buddy
Harold,
whose office was next to mine, and me to find
a way
to save us from the imminent threat of wasps
occupying
our offices, thus cutting short our tenure, two
almost
middle-age faculty with the world of literature
before us,
so I took the lead, with Harold’s concurrence,
found
a wasp, dead on the floor, and taped it to one
of the tall
leaky windows in my office, as if it were a cross,
my version
of an omen I wanted the workers to convey
to
their Queen and, well, they were gone within
24 hours,
with no fanfare whatsoever, and Harold and I
resumed
preparing for classes, grading papers, meeting
with students,
none of whom ever knew the perilous threat
we averted.
