Elsie, wielding a blue flyswatter, chases a hornet from her kitchen.

Escaping, it returns to the colony’s growing nest hidden in the ceiling. There, hundreds of angry hornets continue chewing through the drywall. The ceiling fan whirs, concealing their activity, until, bursting through, the swarm banishes Elsie from their kitchen.

Wendy K. Mages, a Mercy University Professor, is a Pushcart Prize nominee and an award-winning poet and author. She earned her doctorate in Human Development and Psychology at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and her master’s in Theatre at Northwestern University. As a complement to her research on the effect of the arts on learning and development, she performs at storytelling events and festivals in the US and abroad. To learn more about her and her work, and to find links to her published stories and poetry, please visit mercy.edu/directory/wendy-mages