a potato bug and a poet

 a poem

I’m no poet, 

you think to yourself, but

you sit down beneath a tree because

a poet might do the same. 

You write about the changing colors, 

the world that fades from green to bitter yellow, 

the leaf that swirls in the air

and plants a soft kiss on your nose. 

You write about the passing time, 

the fear of losing this moment 

as the dancing leaves will soon turn to snowflakes. 

You write, 

you touch the sandy soil beneath your checkered skirt,

and you imagine yourself to be a poet. 

A potato bug finds himself on the edge of your journal 

And he walks over the words you’ve etched, 

Wondering how they taste. 

Do they taste like the music you tried to make them? 

Or do they taste like what they are: 

Gray pencil dust engraved into

The familiar smell of worn paper? 

He walks until he becomes the poem–

he tells you that you don’t need him 

to say that you are a poet already.