Bugs:
Cute in jars and cartoons,
precious to entomologists,
philosophers, poets
and Albert Schweitzer
Cunning the way a fly,
a mosquito,
darts out of nothingness
and scurries around
a hairy leg
Misfits of terrible beauty,
pandemic pain, they never
ask before they gorge –
blinding, fatal, to children
bathing by rivers,
sleeping on the ground
A plague to them all,
and poisons for rats
who chew on babies,
roaches in kitchens,
and the snails and slugs
who eat the flowers
of my little garden