There is a paper wasp nest dangling from a tree on our easement, high above the street. It is easily the size of a human head, even desiccated as it is from winter months of disuse.
Back in autumn, after the leaves had fallen and made the nest visible to anyone who walked by, I saw some kids throwing stones at it, but nothing came of that.
I wonder if it will fall before spring, and if there are dormant wasps sleeping inside it, and why the wasps chose such a spindly branch to build on in the first place.
But for now it dangles, like Medusa’s head held tauntingly up at the end of Perseus’s hand, the wasp entryway the silent scream of the Gorgon.
— ptkh 010214