Poem: Bug's Life

This poem originally appeared in the latest issue of WHL Review (whlreview.com). Read it there, if you wish, along with two others.

Fly Well In the Dark,

Owl

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Bug’s Life

light exposes our wrinkles
for what they are:
nooks gouged by skin mites

who cringe
on a razorback of knuckle
in a land of mountainous teats.

little Scyllas

fixated in their drama,
spurred by goals of sex and gut.
thoughtless

consumers

who chew corpse
and exploit the inert,
who earn space

and battle hurdles,
swill to wallow,
rituals of desire and dread.

they

champion their wants,
not knowing the want’s why.
belittle what they crush, not sensing

the crushed pleas.

and when we look down,
‘they who tear flesh with numb mouths’
stare back,

precise as a mirror,

feasting at the trough
as if working tobacco.


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