Such dubious tutors:
the upwardly mobile drone
whose instinct sinks his career
with a single sting;
the flim-flam deer tick, upended,
six legs waving, with two new ones,
nose hair thin and due to emerge before
she self-destructs from Siphon Arrest;
and, out-slumming all comers, the fly wannabe,
that inveterate pond bum and bottom crawler, the caddis worm,
sheathed with twiglets and crumbs of stone,
bits of rotted sedge, an earring back,
a long-gone snail’s bivalve casket.
As it was in the beginning,
always the sharp hunger of fear,
then the eating, the hiding.
Note to self: when the test comes around
again, brave communion:
sip the juice,
nibble the Host nicely, and live
to claim, at last, summer’s wings.
