September 2026

Pixie-winged and iridescent black,

The wasp draws its body close,

Bewitched by the bouquet of inverted flowers

Clustering inside a strangler fig’s pod.

She constricts her tiny form, her now vestigial

Antennae and wings breaking away as she enters the false fruit,

Her final earthly acts are pollination and a bequest of her eggs.

She dies trapped, duties to plant and progeny fulfilled.

Colony survival makes martyrs of ants,

As they stalk the perimeter of their soil-built hills,

Exploding from within with virulent secretions,

Killing a radius of enemies who dare tread nearby.

Another dwarfish steward seals off the entry

To its sandy mound when danger is near, it stands

As a sentry exposed, succumbing to the cold.

The colony thrives below the unseen guardian.

Ponderous and teeming, eggs braided within,

An octopus matriarch shapeshifts, assuming the mantle

Of custodian, of heroine, jet propelling to the sunless ocean floor.

Obscured from marauders, she releases her brood,

Shielding them with her body and foregoing her own nourishment.

The eggs are cleaned, aerated, they thrive as she languishes.

From beneath her wasted remains,

Her young hatch and rise to the surface.

Fossil records brushed clean reveal ancient wolves

Healed by the care of kin after gorings by bison and elk.

Lacerated muscle and breached bone rebuilt after months

Of meat procured by hounding pack members.

And elders, bodies languid and teeth putrefying,

Abided their final months like newborn pups,

Their mouths agape to receive nourishment from

Champions prevailing like Canis Major after Orion’s hunt.

As the oceans bear more volume, their rhythmic surfaces

Swelling with memories of the ice-age now melted,

The inky stamp held by an agent reads rejection in red,

Marking the pages of denied climate visas,

The evolutionary advantage that

Raised civilizations now dwindles

As we mutate, becoming colonies of one,

Lumbering monsters, more wild beasts than gods.