Small, hard beetles, shinning jewels perverting the light like pearlised varnish on the nails of young girls. They weren’t tough enough nor wise enough to escape him and his pinch. Dead in his palm, dead pinned against a white backing sheet, pincers reaching for a final hand hold. His hobby, his collection, his delicate love and the reason for his simple secretive smile. Across counties and countries he chases them, seeking out their scuttle of high heels on Sunday morning streets, their palate of cheap eye shadows. He takes them all, from the smallest to the gnarliest. Chrysomelidae Coleoptera Dermestidae Dynastinae He blends into his surroundings: a shopping centre, an unpronounceable city jungle. He changes hues, changes browns, and greens and greys. He doesn’t need to attract; he hunts, he yanks, he lifts, he breaks every rule of the countryside. Not for him the flippant elegance of the butterfly. Not for him, our man so fashionably eccentric in his shirt made by sweat-shop children. No, he collects the Scarabaeidaes of life, in their urge upwards to become most beautiful, most venerated, most highly paid of all the Scarabaidas.
Copyright A Head 2022- an earlier version appeared with a different title in Poetry Now in 2010
Photo by Magda Ehlers on Pexels https://www.pexels.com/@magda-ehlers-pexels/
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