Another little gold bug.
I remember that Wednesday evening (or maybe it was Tuesday, who knows when you’re six)
When the first one wandered by, perched on the handle of a cheap pocket knife in a dollar store.
My reaction fitting to the sight
A novelty is worthy of a marvel and the feeling that Zeus or Jesus or someone or something had blessed you with this fortune
To see something so rare.
Gold and black, a little bigger than a ladybug.
Mom always signed in defeat when the green bugs showed up in the old garden.
The June me never knew why, thought it cruel, misunderstanding.
The July me gaped at the wreckage of the slaughtered zucchini
And understood.
The rare bugs had become king, the overthrowers of summer.
“Squash this”
Now last season, when the green bugs showed up on the pumpkins
I was out in force
Bug guts are nasty.
But it wasn’t enough. One blink, and you’re behind, never to catch up, and the pumpkins wither
like the plants in the rust belt that close their doors forever.
My own fault, too little, too late.
I opened the box from Wal-Mart this morning
There was a little gold bug perched on the cheap monitor mount.
There will be another one on the knockoff carburetor
I ordered for the weed whacker on eBay.
Reminding me that I did this to me, five bucks saved at a time
A corner cut, dully, with cheap steel.
The gold and black sticker.
Made in China.
