Poetry

The Bug's kiss

on a humid summer night
temps still in the high seventies
streetlights not working
i step from my car
as a large fluttering bug
perhaps a moth
or furry flying beetle
afloat in the darkness
lands on my lips
and although i do not see it 
nor hear it
i feel its touch
in the very center of my closed mouth
smack in the middle of my pressed lips
as i blow and brush the bug away quickly
automatically
feeling its dimensions only slightly
responding without fear or disgust
but surprised
as i know instantly
i have not been assaulted
but rather sweetly touched
and although my rational mind
recognizes this event as merely probability expressed
a happenstance of fate
a random intersection of invertebrate and human
i am also aware i have been kissed by an unseen stranger
a princess living in the body of a bug
the light but explicit tapping of god’s finger
calling forth my attention
“wake up,” the bug commands
“we’re in this together, man,
flying around in the muggy dark
come kiss strangers with me,
and let us fly in each other’s company
as often as we can bear”
and we do