Schmidt offered his body up to teeth
to stingers
to poisonous hairs
to spasms of venom.
For seconds, for days, for weeks.
He built an empire of agony
He wore scars and rashes like empirical clothes
recorded memories and data points,
made a wedding registry of data;
a grocery list of suffering.
Every insect was a chalk outline of agony
defined, evaluated, ranked
by how much it hurt
Was the pain a wave
an avalanche, a stubbed toe?
was it a cab shared with a talkative stranger or
a baby born dead and shared with no one?
how long did it last
how much did it hurt
did you regret it? should i?
what choices brought us here and
what will we tell anyone who asks
and then came was the mythical one (not reciprocal)
made him wish for death,
a different degree,
a life that was not this one
the warrior wasp
regret turned like a sunflower toward that scientific sun
that narrow waist
her drumming wings
she was so small, her legs filaments of light and her ache the only one
that was bad enough to matter, vicious enough to merit the weight of
regret
she did not live long
they never do
there were others before and others after
but oh, how she hurt
oh god,
how she hurt.