Wasp in a Trap

What trick is this thing with no escape,
this plastic cone hung from a branch?

The wasp had followed the sweet scent
through the air's various tripwires,

and believed it found a heart, a host body?
Attraction is as natural as repulsion,

but what force keeps it crawling here,
an instinctual scent, or a trapdoor, a way out?

Because I haven't found my way out of a body
since birth, because you've taught me to look

at all of the world as a trap, I now understand
I crawl for your sweet lures, and that escape

from your plastic heart never flowered,
even briefly, within my insect mind.

Copyright © 2010 Lindsay Wilson All rights reserved
from Harpur Palate
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission