Tags
insect
for 80 million years she crawled
flightless as her arthropod ancestors
she grew wings in the devonian period
and flew away faster than six legs ever carried her
no flowers bloomed or scented her flight
no brutes with torches or electric moons
she flew in a night without fire and she dreamed
remember her under your porch lights
in your desolate parking lots at 3 a.m.
in your isolated rooms where sunlight
never penetrates
remember her millennia of yearning
for a place to swarm and burn completely
and in that brief flash before dying
tell an ancient story written with buzzing wings
outlined with keratinous hairs
segmented like carapaces into paragraphs
stories you could never understand
until you too had lived in darkness
This poem appears in the collection Inner Planets: 50 Poems by Matthew Howard. Available in paperback, Kindle, and audiobook.
Mars Will Send No More 