A black ladybug climbs up then down a blade of grass
swaying back and forth in the gentle breeze.
To be that small, a single tuft is an obstacle.
He approaches me with fervor.
I see now that he’s a beetle.
Black with brown patches
resembling splotches of dried mud.
He struggles over a stick,
I hold out my pen for him to climb on.
I’ll help him get to where he needs to go.
This spooks him, he retracts his limbs
and becomes an unassuming clump
of dirt stuck to the twig.
After a few moments of being dirt,
he decides the coast is clear
and begins to move toward the jacket
I’m sitting on. He makes his way under
my makeshift picnic blanket.
I grab the slim stick he’s racing across
and lift it into the air.
Sorry buddy, you’re a little too close
for comfort, I say to him.
Me, a giant that’s probably sitting
on the entrance to his home,
where his beetle wife and beetle babies
are awaiting his safe return.
Me, an intruder in nature
that probably has three other bugs
crawling on me as I infringe on their space,
lay in their grass, lean on their tree.
As I hold him in the air I turn the twig
every which way inspecting the insect.
His eyes, his wings, his hard shell.
How many legs does he have?
How old is he? Is he a he?
What does he think about?
Do beetles have thoughts?
Can he communicate with his friends?
Does he have desires and dreams?
He clings lifeless to the twig
I imagine myself in his position,
suspended high in the air
at the mercy of an unknown giant.
Being inspected by an eyeball
ten times the size of my entire existence.
Waved around this way and that
as they interrogate my body.
I wonder if this is the first time
this beetle’s been manhandled by a human,
If he’s been flicked off a picnic table
or caught in a child’s palms.
I set him down on my left and
imagine holding him in my hands.
Feeling each individual leg
moving across my skin. Although
I wouldn’t dare touch him again.
I’ve already disrespected him enough
by disturbing his walk.
I imagine him biting me.
Right on the pad of my hand
where my index finger meets my palm.
I wouldn’t blame him. I wouldn’t squish him.
I would apologize because, after all,
he wouldn’t have bitten me if I didn’t mess with him.
Sometimes I feel like a beetle.
Hanging on to a blade of grass
for dear life while what others describe
as a gentle breeze knocks the wind out of me.
Struggling to climb over twigs
while watching other insects
soar through the air above.
Like I’m just trying to get home,
get somewhere safe when a giant
unexpected obstacle blocks my path.
After ten long minutes of playing dead,
my beetle friend, well, I consider him a friend
but he might not think the same of me.
my beetle acquaintance,
begins to show signs of life.
He tip-toes off the tiny twig
then beelines back to my jacket
and that’s my cue to leave.
I believe what goes around comes around
and all I can do is hope the universe
will treat me how I treated this beetle.
Maybe one day soon my giant obstacles
will politely move themselves out of my way too.
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Alexandria Hutton is an artist, poet, and photographer born and raised in upstate New York. She now reads and writes in California, while in pursuit of an MFA from the University of San Francisco.
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Jury S. Judge is an internationally published artist, writer, poet, and cartoonist. Her Astronomy Comedy cartoons were published in The Lowell Observer. She was interviewed on the television news program NAZ Today for her work as a cartoonist. Her artwork has been featured in over one hundred thirty-five literary magazines, including the covers of Blue Mesa Review, 3 Elements Review, Glass Mountain, and Levitate. She has also been interviewed by Streetlight Magazine and The Antonym. She graduated Magna Cum Laude with a BFA from the University of Houston, Clear Lake in 2014.
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