Click Beetle

The neck snaps between my fingers.

It feels as though the head might break free

and dance like a seed in the wind,

land where shadows gather round

to create a new body, this bug a dash

between words—flower—leaf—tree—

 

stem. I try to hold it in my pinch—the whorls

and loops of my prints—but it slides—

each click of the body a slipping

from my grasp. What a way to escape—

a flick—a nod—a drop to the hard-waiting

earth. I can’t stop thinking of this beetle

 

broken—a creature come detached—

falling to pieces—one violent twitch

too many. And what would become of

the shatter—a period—a hyphen—

a virgule—a scribble? What punctuation

might I become—comma—question mark—

 

exclamation—parentheses? I don’t know.

I don’t know. How can I know?

My fingers are apostrophes—like this—

snapping to a memory of myself as a boy—

to someone I know I’ll never be again.

He was someone who believed bugs

 

could disassemble then come back

together in new and stranger forms.

He was someone who never thought

his popping joints would ever ache—

his fingers positioned around a pen—applying

pressure to a page—giving weight to words

 

that fall apart as easily as a recollection

of a first love. My first love. A twinge

in my heart—a pang—every fractured piece

put back together as something unfamiliar—

something remarkable—something

I’ve never been before. 

 

 

-David B. Prather