come to mind

among my mother’s things
the oval fluted-glass vase
traveled back with me
across the ocean sits now
in the kitchen sink

as fresh water rises
to an old water mark you’d think
blowsy roses would float up
or the room itself might fill
with a heavy scent of petals
from the past

but no
it is beetles that come to mind
Japanese beetles we called them
magnificent florescent
green and black beetles

every morning in the month of June
while Mother cut trimmed and fussed
we kids were forced to fan out
across the lawn each to a rose bush
in its tidy round bed
of dark brown peat to tip

the hated beetles by the hundreds
off from their leafy treats
out from their crimson caves
into old mayonnaise jars landing
in hot water panicked
and desperate each bug paddling

squirming over the others
a thick teeming layer of life poured
into the bowl of the toilet
flushed away whooshing
through the pipes

into recurring nightmares
load after load exterminated
all that death so the heedless airy roses
totally lost now even to memory
could live

Karen L. McDermott Oct 2005