Stink Bug

by Marcia Millican

Despite your derogatory name,
I detected nothing when you snuck into my home.

I studied your shield shaped shell affixed to my wall,
savored your similarity to a sacred scarab.

I admired your long-arched antennae,
noticed your numerous jointed limbs.

I witnessed the emergence of your wings,
astonished by your ascent to the light.

I read that most likely you came in for warmth,
not determined to cause destruction.

I decided not to arouse your odorous quality,
instead, I returned you gently outside.

‘Officer Krupke’

by Rebecca Carroll Christensen

We meet every morning, clandestine
as you scurry out from under the cabinet
a baton of dust riding shotgun on your spindly legs
oblivious of your sinister image.

You case out the water bowl
sift through the dry cat food as if picking apart a crime scene.
Sometimes you just sit there, hidden, blending in
but you shed this under-cover, focused stillness
and swivel to eye me dead on when I turn to move away.

Cats rumble in like a gang of delinquents
and you rear up, your courage worn like a badge
all 8 legs tap, tap, tapping
in a show of intimidation.

Funny how the cats & I dance and clown around you
but never engage in harmful sport.
You remain calm and in charge
Officer Krupke hanging with the riffraff.

Frank

by Robert Vandersluis

I don’t remember the first time I saw him,
but I think it was already summer or, perhaps,
late Spring.

Still pliant and green, the grass had not turned
to the crisp golden brown it would become later,
when each step across it rasps.

His fancy name is hesperumia sulphuraria,
a sulphur moth to most of us,
yet so much prettier than that sounds, even in Latin.

Flying as though he had
one wing shorter than the other,
Frank – as I started to call him –
looped his way through my yard.

Frank comes daily around 2:00 PM,
stage right out of my home office window,
flying in large stuttering loops,
right to left, the length of my hedge.

At approximately 2:30,
Frank returns from his sojourn, stage left to right
and exits, ungainly as he started,
over my fence.

This cream-colored little fellow
disappeared last Fall,
and I mourned him until
he, or maybe his kid, returned this year.

Frank is dependable that way,
a showoff really.
Halting and ungainly as his flight may be,
his loopy flights make for a nice break in the day.

Little Fruit Fly I Thought You Were a Flea

by Sheila Bender

Little fruit fly I thought you were a flea
left in my new apartment from the previous
tenant, your tiny self deciding to bite me
since I didn’t bring a pet, just another human
who wasn’t getting itchy spots like me.

I watched you fly around the bathroom
and wondered if you liked the smell of toothpaste.
I thought I saw you by my headboard,
even under covers, but now, when I see five of you
accumulated on a dish of ripe tomatoes left
uncovered as I turned from chopping to find
my phone and answer what might have been important,
I know you are a fruit fly not a flea.

These little ones make me think of what I’ve left,
adored vegetable garden, abundant fig and apple trees
we plundered, even though inside it meant hordes
of your relatives circling and circling.

Summer was filled with remedies for such antics,
apple cider vinegar in a plastic covered jar, small
holes punched so they’d go in and not come out.

As we hang paintings and coat hooks, arrange
and rearrange containers on a counter, you are here.
Over the aroma of melon rinds in the garbage,
you circle as my memories do–digging in dirt,
checking leaves for aphids, hoping slugs and razor
ants will move away from beds of sprouted
radishes, peas, the beans, and greens.

I read that in your two-week lives, your females might
each lay 500 eggs that hatch in just one day or two.
Thinking about such acceleration irritates me as I grow
older and by downsizing prepare to be older yet.

You can’t cheat death I’ve heard from one mouth
or another since I was young, but when I notice
you’ve returned not a minute since I shooed you,
I stop thinking about endings and see the greenery
flourishing beyond each of my new windows.

Issue Page

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