That August, in La France Profonde,
the frelons were out in force,
honey-gold cruisers of late summer air,
their poigniards sheathed. The heat
lapped at a sticky terrace table,
our observation post for village fictions —
Jean, his bench-saw snoring to the hornets,
a girl scraping her pans out to the hens,
that old man in his garden chair —
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