woodlouse on a twig mojo maniac
First Encounter
by Melody Wilson

Bored of squeezing snapdragons’ cheeks,
impersonating my sister through their ruffled
lips, I sift petals in the soil, yellow, pink. A bean
wobbles toward me, domed creature marching
through chips. I press my finger
against the ground, up it crawls.
Eyelash feet, butterfly kisses,
up my finger and into my palm.
I draw my folded hands close
to my face, open: “Peek a boo!”

Its antennae wonder.
“Don’t be afraid” I poke
its shiny shell. Smooth,
cool as orange peel, familiar as fingernail.
I blow into my palm. The creature rolls up,
tight as a pea. I am wonderstruck,
test it with a tap. It rolls over once,
rocks back, Still, mute. A magic trick? A disaster?

I drop it into the leaves and stand,
brush dirt from my dress, glance
toward the house. My mother is working
in the den, my sisters playing records. The sprinkler
chides: chhh chhh, chhh, ch, ch, ch, ch, ch ch.
I tower in the flower bed, in my guilt,
step toward the sidewalk, look again
into the mulch. The bug ambles
toward the tomatoes, my tricycle’s streamers
glitter in the breeze.

PHOTO: Woodlouse on a twig by Mojo Maniac.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: I spent much of 2020 writing a collection of poetry about my mother, at the end of which I felt pretty exhausted. So I decided to write a series of poems about bugs. The only reason I decided to do this was that they provided a way for me to do a little research, which I love, and focus on something that has few if any emotional resonances. Well, bugs turned out to have a lot of emotional weight and became a chapbook that will come out in August 2023. This is one of my favorites of that group. The bug in the poem is unnamed for two reasons. Because the narrator is a child and it’s her first encounter, and because the name of the “bug” is regional and a topic of conversation.  So, to me it’s a curly bug, but to some people it’s a pill bug, or a rolly polly. Sometimes it’s a sow bug.  It’s actually not even a bug but a crustacean.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The woodlouse has 176 nicknames and seven pair of lungs, according to Country Life. 

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Melody Wilson’s recent work appears in Quartet, Re Dactions, Sky Island Review, and on VerseDaily. New work will appear in Sugar House Review, Minnow, and Nimrod. She received the 2021 Kay Snow Award and recognition for the Oberon, Dobler, and Pablo Neruda Awards. Her first chapbook, Spineless: Memoir in Invertebrates, was a finalist for the New Women’s Voices competition. It will be published by Finishing Line Press in 2023. Find her work at melodywilson.com.