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.