I

Who can forget
The wonderment?
A ladybug
Tiptoed up your stubby
Little index finger,
Stopped at the top,
Turned its tiny
Alligator face towards you
With its spongy eyes;
Then, like a marvelous toy,
It opened its red backpack
And pearlescent wings unfolded,
Moist with rainbow.
You heard a fast flap,
And it flew into the sun.

II

For elephants to copulate is quite an event;
A little to the right, a little to the left...
The ladybugs do it for two hours,
With no complications at all!
After considering size,
Which would you rather be?

III

“Buy 1,500 ladybugs for $9.99,
Freight included. Best In the fall.
When they arrive, all jet lagged,
You must put them in the refrigerator
In a jar while they hibernate.
Then in June wait for a full moon,
On a humid and still night
And bring them to your garden.
They will be as helots
In a land of milk and honey-
And will stay for 2000 years.”

IV

Scientists study the origami
Of the ladybugs wings;
Like cellophane sails
Tucked in so ingeniously;
They vibrate a hundred times
Each second, and go 40 MPH,
Non-stop, NY to Boston.

Forget the saucers or cylinders!
It will be ladybug ships
That soar at the speed of light
In the solar winds to galaxies
By carpometacarpals
Springing from bright red hatches,
Adorned with polka dots.

V

We prayed to the Queen of Heaven
To save our crops.
She sent a cloud of red pebbles
With angel wings;
Soon they devoured
The tiny mites killing our field.
We named them for our Lady.

VI

Ladybug Ladybug O tell me your dreams-
Lost in the city’s electric savagery
Where your red shelled body gleams
From the garden of life’s possibilities;

Ladybug Ladybug O tell me your dreams-
Or have you wandered from the cemetery
To these streets of grease and gasoline
To remind me of some final scream?

Ladybug Ladybug O tell me your dreams-
Do you have a soul for which to plea
For your redemption to be free
Of the burden you have brought to me?

VII

Ladybugs smite mites in daily massacres,
War machines with poison blood,
Thick armor and claws which bite;
Merciless, brutal beetles,
Devouring all the aphids in their way;
Their attack is even more cruel than men;
They can fly.

VIII

I was twelve, I was in love.
She had pigtails and braces.
We met in the schoolyard.
I gave her a ladybug.
She crushed it.
I have been looking for love
Ever since.