VOXOxford Mississippi’s Independent Literary Journal

Archive Contributors Distribution Interviews Links Press Reviews Samples Staff Submit Support Translations

Todd B. Rudy Immolation of Insects

Humming with heads hung, pilgrim swarms

Encircle nightly, a ritual filling the warm

Sky with inquisitive insects, porch-lit

And seeking the esoteric glow from sunset

Till dawn. But once at the wire, no scent or shake

Can warn them from their curious fate: to bake

Alive inside their skeletal caskets, turn

Over in rapture, writhe, blossom, and burn.

Nothing but shells and loose wings get tossed

Each month or so, mindlessly scattered across

The garden, unseen relics to insects that spire

Through darkness, called from field to field to fire,

Beckoned by that fractaled question as bone-

yard flowers below digest them one-by-one.

VOX V1.1 Page 17