The Beetle
Lumbering over the
sun-speckled concrete sidewalk,
the traveler’s legs buckled under
its bulky brown carapace the way I
bend under sacks
chock-a-block with groceries.
Less noisy than John, Paul, George or Ringo,
this beetle nearly didn’t catch my
attention as it halted from
fatigue or fear of being crushed by
oblivious bipeds in Bermuda shorts.
I nudged a bank card from my
pocket next to the insect, which
boarded the red plastic,
lifting off like a
fair-goer on a Ferris wheel before I
deposited the passenger
in the shelter of a shrub
where it sped over the greenery
with the light feet of relief.
~
Crisscrossing North America as a language professional, Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee Adrian Slonaker is fond of opals, owls and fire noodles. Adrian’s work has been published in WINK: Writers in the Know, Ez.P.Zine, Page & Spine and others.
