--after Linda Pastan


Charlotte likes insects
and has pictures and diagrams
hanging in her room.
She calls me in and pats beside her
on the bed and tells me about
butterflies, grasshoppers, cicadas.
She shows me the graveyard of
Asian beetles on her windowsill.

And the deathwatch beetle, she says
smiling, is not about anything frightening;
it does not have a stinger that poisons,
it does not watch you in the high, un-
reachable corner of the room; it simply
gets its name from the ticking
sound it makes.

“It’s a timekeeper,” I say with a small smile.
She answers, “It’s a witness.”

01/02/2006

Posted on 01/03/2006
Copyright © 2024 Lisa Marie Brodsky