To the Hornets That Stung Me While I Painted the House
by Sam Aureli
It was a hot needle in the arm,
sudden and insistent.
Once, twice, maybe more.
Counting didn’t matter.
Pain never asks to be measured.
And honestly, I get it.
I tore down your home,
a blunt rain against
the paper walls you chewed
from wood and spit and labor,
hexagons stacked like prayers.
Still, I kept painting,
brush shaking,
lines going crooked.
I told myself this was necessary.
Something invisible snapped,
and you released the signal.
Then the air thickened with wings,
bodies vibrated with intent,
each one carrying a message
too urgent for words.
I had a job. You had a job.
Orders baked into blood,
into muscle memory and instinct,
into the soft architecture of fear.
Reasoning was impossible.
Warning, relocation, diplomacy—
none of it would have mattered.
A Silent Sorry for Roadkill
by Sam Aureli
I saw a red-tailed hawk
lying dead beside the highway.
What stayed with me
wasn’t the death,
but the place it came to rest—
not in the nearby marsh where you’d expect it,
among reeds and water,
but on the gravel shoulder,
wings open, exposed.
All day I carried the question
without naming it:
traffic, hours stacked and moving,
or the woods,
where branches knock together
and moss keeps its quiet.
About the Author
Sam Aureli is an Italian-born poet living in the Boston area. A first-generation college graduate, he spent decades working with concrete, steel, and the built environment before turning to poetry as a way of exploring memory, inheritance, and the complicated legacies we carry. He works full-time in real estate development. He is the author of On the Edge of Knowing (Kelsay Books, 2026). His chapbook, That's Not My Shadow, won the 2026 Poetry Box Chapbook Prize and is forthcoming in 2027. His poems have appeared in The Berlin Review, Chestnut Review, The Bournemouth Journal, and other literary journals.
