Most mistake the long ovipositor of the parasitic oak gall wasp
andricus foecundarix for a stinger, they imagine
it could inject pain like a scorpion, or do damage like slamming your finger 
in a car door so the flesh scrapes forward,
one of those proper injuries where the blood doesn’t immediately gush 

but the ovipositor is actually an instrument of sacrifice 
and care. She will spend all her days focused on the only act that matters, 
she isn’t interested in the latest reclining garden furniture or 
how a TV chef suggests pork belly fat should be marinated – 
it is only how accurately she delivers her single egg safely within a leaf bud.

Your precision is mistaken for care. Things must be done in order, 
in good time; thank you notes and birthday cards, a token gesture followed by
a Sunday call or voicemail which discharges some words 
which cause chemically induced distortion of what our history was. Is.
The larvae is safe and snug in the oak gall. What it was really like

is erased call by call, Christmas cards by Anniversary cards. A ton of them. 
When I texted, I wanted to talk about it but you replied I should do you 
the courtesy of thinking of all the good times since but I’m not bothered,
I want to think of how the wasp you swat knowing its stinger is no stinger,
has no poison. Things are the wrong way around and you won’t admit it.