The Insect’s Valuable Touch
Jonathan Sismesmal
Monarch butterfly licked the oil
From my skin with its proboscis,
As I blew off the small sweet bees
And the inchworm's hatchlings,
In their lucid group cocoon
Suckled from the shrub,
Much like the spider devours
Its mate of forced procreation,
and why the praying mantis spits
At the swaying stick bug
For resembling the tree.
Edible locusts crashed into me
Trying to find a field of wheat,
While the chiggers laid eggs in my leg.
at the yellow jacket’s tail popped.
Mosquitos drank the red pools,
Like the queen bee after murdering
Her competition drinks gold
From cavities large enough to hold
Some tick before bludgeoned
To the size of maggots
Ready to turn to fly.
Red wasp meaning to sting, pierced my ear,
And now an amber encased scarab
Dangles from a scorpion tail chain,
Like a Venus fly trap closed
Around a caterpillar,
As a ball of writhing worms
At the bottom of a grapevine,
That red ants tear apart for food
To sustain their ground worked kingdom;
Cicadas wait for years
To leave their shells behind.