Content note: this may trigger insect phobia.
She was five: old enough to know that bees make honey and attack as a last resort, but wasps make nothing and cannot be trusted. Don’t run and wave your arms if a wasp comes, said her brother, just keep very still and it will soon go away on its own.
Late summer, The garden full of fragrant, sleepy, humming heat. Her orange lolly mouth a sticky beacon. She flinched as a wasp swerved close, and froze as she felt it alight on her sugared lips.
Unable to move or speak, she waited.
The wasp saw no reason to depart.
Tom Juniper Poetry 