There are an estimated 560 million beetles for every human on Earth

All you need is love, little guy, shiny
beetle, tiny god nestled in your green
carapace. You mirror back my love, you
don’t let me down as you crawl all over
every little thing on this planet, all
four hundred thousand of your known species.
Good morning, good morning! Every dawn you’re 
here, there, and everywhere. When I see you,
I feel fine knowing you’re oblivious,
just doing your beetle things. Even when
kicked around by human feet, you dears just
let it be, just carry on, go nowhere
man can reach. And would you believe that I
need you, bug, more than any human soul?
Oh! Darling, it’s true. So let me watch you
pace along this sidewalk. Here comes the sun
quietly rising. If in its shine or
rain, I’ll just kneel here transfixed. Because there’s
something in the way you move that makes the
two of us one world not found across the
universe, what Donne called an everywhere.
Voracious little thing, eat up my time.
What else do I need but you, you nearly
xenomorphic gem? Human life is so
yesterday. I believe in you. I’m your 
zealot—your hysterical, screaming fan.

is that dead dog’s collar you keep 
in the drawer of unusables
along with the hardened super
glue, a remote control for channels
long cancelled & the lock 
of a stolen bicycle. Guilt is circular, 
yes, tattered & sturdy, comfortable
in its choking. The problem is you
remember everything. The problem is guilt
has a cuteness to it, a breathing
innocence: a time
of distended bellies, of gnawing 
because new teeth hurt so damn much. You find 
it over & over—while furiously looking
for your ankle brace or the spare 
set of car keys—& your heart drops
at the sight of those ridiculous, perfectly
orblike blue whales, smirking
whales printed on the collar 
& did I say guilt 
is round? Guilt looks like it would stink
from here to the highest heaven, but it’s been 
washed & again so many times 
it just smells stale. It warns 
that death’s face is a puppy. 
You must remind yourself that those sad 
eyes are just a product of evolution. 
Guilt is nothing 
if we don’t offer it our necks. 
Guilt is a tool, it allows what walks
us to never ever let go. How 
is all this power held together 
by a buckle of the cheapest plastic? 
Did I say guilt is a loop?

Public Enemy at full volume en route
to a New Hampshire summer, is tongue in cheek
gospel like the yellow and green colorway
Nikes dad got from the back of that pick-up,
bootleg Huey P. Newton in a Lacoste
polo shirt. Kids said fake and you got angry,
not because they poked or questioned what was real
but because you didn’t know and you should’ve.

Life lessons come at different ages for
different folks. You’re five and mom sits you down
to explain why kids made fun of you and why
you shouldn’t be ashamed. You’re fifteen and think
the only reason your bi-racial friends are
confused is because they never had that talk.
You’re twenty and curbed use of the word sellout,
opting for we’re all in this together fam.

Know there are limits, trying to prove yourself.
Hat backwards, baggy shorts and that certain swag 
you picked up from years of practice. The cute girls, 
just far enough away to think their whispers 
are safe, debate themselves: what you think he is?
You lose the point in the tennis match and you
get angry, not because they distracted you
but because they didn’t know and someone should.