A bouquet of desert mountain
Wildflowers was plucked quickly
From a rocky hillside, and brought home.
I’d noticed the beetle-bug thing inside one
Flower, a yellow one. Flopped haphazardly
Into a vase, the flowers sit to my right, on my cluttered
Computer desk. The beetle/bug is still there. At one point,
I almost flicked it off, my garbage can is just to the right
Of the vase. I paused, mid-flick, thinking it didn’t really mar
The blossom’s look; this particular flower was this bugs choice, or its
Circumstance or miracle; where it existed, small as it wasis. I know
This tiny creature will die by my hand, but not because I didn’t care
A flower was its home. Within the house I brought it to. If I had flicked
The bug away from my sight, I would have committed murder, its death
Consumed by lurid human patterns, spring-drought, cats and unwarranted
Experiences! Not Nature’s; altered. As family life went on, through minutes
And hours, the little beetle has gone to sleep. At least I think it’s asleep, it hasn’t
Moved since before I almost flicked it off. I know when I wake up in the morning, it will
Be here or not. Not by fate, but by my whim to pick some desert wildflowers, on the
Way home from a convenience store not more than a mile away, into a spring bouquet
from a deserted mountain.

Erin Elizabeth Kelly-Moen
© Copyright 3/22/09