• Shimmying, a rustle to the waxen leaves,
    she burrows her head deeper into the pit,
    scavenging for a bounty of savory nectar

    Belly a wide girth, she feasts to contentment
    Out pops the upper half, bulging eyes and
    stalky antennae
    A heavy dusting of cotton sunshine rests upon her
    rumpled hindquarters

    Into the throes of a gale, she flies,
    zip, zip through the skyline, speckle on a galaxy
    Bristles of fronts, solar and lunar, meet in ringlets,
    always parallel, never eclipsing one another

    Sisters united, she returns to the homestead,
    where she tends to the hatchlings, moist and blind,
    and guards the cubby holes of a honeycomb,
    swimming with amber nectar

    Sudden, jolting movement rocks the nest,
    crackles sound, twists and snaps, as the mothership
    lurches and sways
    Her antennae twitch in frenzy, tune, and alert

    Outside, the enemy lurks, a siege on the kingdom
    She enlists, joints the flanks of soldiers
    A battlecry erupts, and she charges, swarming the
    thorny paw of a rust leviathan

    A martyr to the Queen and to all posterity,
    thy will done, she perishes on the battlefield,
    all but a dagger to keep her company