"The Beetle-woman" by D. ´Emera´ Chien

(Watch, in the cool dark of her tasseled tent:

she blinks again,

nictitates,

the chitin-framed eyes shuttering down.

Lash-legs meet, mesh,

then groom themselves

back to a feathery fringe.

Human again, nearly

Nearly beautiful, those questing lashes.)

She says, voice a tremolo scurry:

She’ll

tell your fortune in scarabs,

toss ladybirds for love,

locusts for luck,

lay you an opulence of opals

with wings.


She’ll tell you a tale of the sun-beetle

trundling his burning ball, ah!

so fine across that white-hot sky

or of the khepri who stole the king’s daughter,

built her a palace of flowers in a night.

In a voice vibrating with longing,

she’ll spin you a story of a beetle-maid—

the finest of her tribe! Skin like lacquer,

hair glossy as a wing—

a beetle-maid, she says,

who left her people for the soft-skins’ lands,

looking for life,

looking for love.

But that was many years ago.


Payment?

Arrah, none.

Just

tell her,

is she beautiful?