Poem for the Day: Wasp on a Madrid Tour Bus (from Miniscule: Spain ©)

Wasp on a Madrid Tour Bus

Through each force and bend, a wasp kept herself

rigid, perched on top of a windowless view. She

fluttered and bobbed as the bus picked up speed,

hanging on with such panache, as if giving that

look of a swan afloat. In Puerta de Sol, she looked

out on the statues of men, mimics in Pompeii mud.

Further along and still clinging, her tiny image a

spectre in the artistic scene, we passed del Prado

Museum with Hieronymus Bosch; Rubens' women

lounging in naked sangfroid, Goya's two hounds

chained at the hunt. Then for some reason wasp

sleeked her wings, left suddenly within the soft

seize of breeze, as if the day was a queue

thrusting through it. The Reiner Sofia exhibited

the genius of men, each countryman knowing the
other, Mirό's Self-Portrait II to Picasso's Guernica.

And not quite visible, there on an outer wall, wasp

still clinging to a glassed-in lift  –  a small genius.