Lauren Levato

Acrididae

The Indiana girl dreams of grasshoppers,

the phosphorescent sound

                                                clikchshttaa-snap

of swiftly beating wings

or pull-tab-tops popping off aluminum cans.

Marram grass refuses the lunge of their slight bodies,

not unlike the way a young switch lands across the backside,

                                                clikchshttaa-snap

like leafless willow leaves a tiny tear

lifts a fleck of flesh at the tail end.

                       ____

She is dreaming and he is drowning.

The spinning continues,

   a nightlight –

                        ____

Suddenly, a green feather falls.

The grasshopper alights sideways,

opening a doorway.

The doorway into memory is the shape

of a mouth speaking in tiny measures,

the shape of an open hand            closing.

‘Lepidoptera’ being the (x=) variable

Miles of moths open and close like her compact mirror,

her stolen map, her verbose mouth.

                        East Texas is a storm of scales and iridescence.

                                    Her fingertips are a brocade pattern of apologies.

The purple pause on his fingertip indicates obsession.

                                                All around her, mouths keep happening.

                        Pupae in glass jars, her in blue jeans.

Her cupboards full, she smells blood, saliva. 

She keeps the lights on, sets tiny fires.

That summer the lake took dark-haired girls named Karen

whose mothers were wasp-waisted.

                        Cars stall, clogged with wings.

Rhythmically, the slipping sound of water.

‘Hymenoptera’ being the (y=) constant

Wasps spring from the bodies of dead horses.

Most are parasitic, making their hives from blonde women’s hair.

She eats oranges before bed

            sleeps wearing white gloves

                        dreams of pages turning so fast they buzz.

People are in hysterics, triggered by acute nervous conditions.

Every living thing was eaten, only bones were found.

He pulls the left wing off an ant

 never takes off his socks

                        words colliding in his vermilion mouth.

Lauren Levato is fascinated by insects. Beyond that she is a visual artist and the author of at the hotel andromeda, a visual art/poetry project with Kristy Bowen (Dancing Girl Press, 2007) and Marriage Bones (Fractal Edge Press, 2006). She works as the gallery director for Lillstreet Art Center in Chicago. More can be found at www.laurenlevato.com.