Scale

by CAROL STEINHAGEN

            Season's architecture complete,
            the mud dauber wasp
            has retired.

                                    In this basement,
wings folded, she lets each of her six legs
feel its place on the cement floor. The furnace
hums them imperceptibly forward
without disturbing any part of her body—
antennae, head, thorax, thread of petiole
that keeps the pendulous abdomen
attached to the rest. The whole black body
with its yellow punctuation is smaller
than the dust devil
rolling across the floor.
                                              Before morning’s end
she will advance to the dryer
where studs of blue jeans
snap against the drum, over and over,
as it makes its small metal circuit
in the machine,
                              and as cars halted
at the stoplight on the corner throb
with stereophonic percussion, growling
impatience to resume their prowl
on the grand circuitry
that binds the earth
                                       as it spins
in its track around the sun,
a speck of dust
in the eye of the universe.

            The petiole of a mud dauber
            is composed
            of 43 concentric corrugated layers.
            From the top of the dryer,
            it looks like an eyelash.