I became a serial killer at the age of seven
with my feet curled against the stone on the pool’s edge,
a ladybug bobbed in the water, opening its wings that stuck
like wet tissue paper to its body.
I pulled it from its chlorine coffin with a net and placed it
beside a line of ants with squished abdomens,
evidence of my medical malpractice.
Not my fault that their exoskeletons were too weak
for the sharp twig I used to perform CPR. Just like
the moths I cupped in my hands and crushed
when they flew into the glass door. Their wings were so thin
the scales stained my palms like dust. It was gray
like the rabbit my father ran over with his new car,
it bled Red like my old dog, but we called her Ginger.
“It’s the circle of life,” we said, because
CARS ARE A KEYSTONE SPECIES-
just as important as the beaver
whose dams flood forests and turn rivers into ponds,
until they flood our culverts and roads.
Nature’s best architects don’t always get along.
And so I wonder if what I did was all that wrong
I’m only another homo sapiens that wanted to help,
too humble to call (us) a keystone species
and too proud to admit we could be invasive.
