I’ve Always Feared Wasps | Megan A. Pastore - Poetry Contest 1st Place Winner - Summer 2025

I (un)knowingly

eat them for lunch:

multigrain crackers, goat

cheese, side of fresh

ripened figs– Their wings,

the dark slits of their eyes.

What does it mean

to pretend to not know

what you are knowingly

doing? To ignore fact

for fiction, to (un)know

it was already the end

the first time he kept

going after you

were (un)sure

you told him to stop.

To pretend he must

not have heard you

easier than (un)

knowing he did

but just didn’t

care. To slip

into that white space

beyond the body, flip

the switch of sensation

all nerves, no pulse,

wet wings in your mouth–

You swear you felt them

trying to fly.

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Megan A. Pastore is a poet, essayist, and fiction writer from Chesapeake, VA. Recent publications include Nota Bene, Eat Darling Eat, Barely South Review, and poets.org. Her work is forthcoming in the anthology Letting Grief Speak ed. by Diane Zinna (Columbia University Press, Fall 2024) and the 2025 anthology The Nature of Our Times: Poems on America’s Lands, Waters, Wildlife, and Other Natural Wonders (Paloma Press). Recent awards include Phi Theta Kappa’s Ewing Citation Award, and ODU’s College Poetry Prize sponsored by the Academy of American Poets, the ODU MFA Program, and the Poetry Society of Virginia. Megan is currently enrolled as a Poetry candidate in Old Dominion University’s Master of Fine Arts program. She is a graduate teaching assistant, Senior Poetry Editor for Barely South Review, reader for Frontier Poetry, and a summer gallery host for the Barry Art Museum in Norfolk, VA.