SAINT LUCY TEACHES ME ABOUT CARPENTER BEES

          after and in memory of Antonio Vallone

sure they seem like a problem sometimes

you see they look like bumble bees 
to an untrained eye but what you 
need to look for is the shiny butt

territorial only with other carpenter
bees and mostly harmless – you could
get stung by a female but the chances 
are low 

hell on a railing and especially untreated
wood but really the damage is minimal 
maybe some saw dust piles but overall
not worth it to use insecticide or kill them

really all a carpenter bee wants to do
is have a safe space and keep it safe

protect kin and have someplace to call 
home – spend afternoons in the sun 
travelling through the garden or 
past a tree carrying pollen and keeping
everything around us alive just a little 
longer

my advice is to sweep up the sawdust and
replace the wood after a couple of years

Wesley Scott McMasters lives and teaches in east Tennessee, just within sight of the Great Smoky Mountains with his wife, Caroline, and their dog, Poet, who came with the name, they swear. He is an editor for Red Branch Review and Red Flag Poetry and the author of The Bathtub Madonna (Riverdog, 2022), In Which My Lover Tells Me about the Nature of Wild Things (Mammoth Books, 2020), and Trying to Be a Person (Words Dance, 2016). His work is forthcoming in ONE ART, and can be found previously in Appalachian Lit, Wildroof, Still: The Journal, Pennsylvania English, and others.