Pupa—in Latin, girl, doll, puppet.
Maggots love low and butterflies, high.
Students laugh in bathroom stalls,
names looped in cursive, blue-ink ribbons
in the margins. (In the margins.)
Girl, doll, puppet. Eyes like mirrors
and the fire ants look. And the spiders look.
And they love the sound of themselves
singing, sipping through mouth-caves
of a tired supper. Sleep at that size
asphyxiates, rope slack til the first blood-rain
of Spring. Mother’s gentle hand on the belly,
cloud of the womb. Girl, doll, puppet.
As simple as who you are, as complicated as
what you’re up against. Pray with every pupil.
Pray to the Patron-Saint of Small Bugs,
to the White Knight of Step-On-Able Things.
The Patron-Saint of Small Bugs
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Lizzy Burnam 🐞 
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