by Emmie Christie
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| Sphecius speciosus, often simply referred to as the cicada killer or the cicada hawk, is a large digger wasp species. —iNaturalist |
The cicada killers drone in the park
Small rockets,
A display of gold in the sky.
I glare. I stare them down,
But billionaire buoyancy keeps them
Flying. A confidence fueled by concepts,
On stinger stock options,
Keeping me inside my cardboard home
But even that’s Prime real estate,
This box someone threw out.
And I shouldn’t be sleeping here, no,
Because that nearby bush has a plaque.
Where can I go to sleep?
I guess it’s a crime to have bad luck,
To lose my savings to a fire truck.
Where can I go
When the wealthy claim even the sky,
And I am not allowed to dream?
The cicada killers drone in the park.
Emmie Christie’s work tends to hover around the topics of feminism, mental health, cats, and the speculative such as unicorns and affordable healthcare. She has been published in Flash Fiction Online and Three-Lobed Burning Eye, and she graduated from the Odyssey Writing Workshop in 2013. She also enjoys narrating audiobooks for Audible. You can find her on Twitter @EmmieChristie33.