Harlequin Ladybird

The ladybird is a hard pill, a dose of red medicine. Her dogged way of walking & the gleam on her elytra suggest a certain brittleness, a gift for sudden flights of rage. You wouldn’t think such a small mouth could pack such a painful bite. Like everyone, I found her cute at first, until I realized there were many more versions of her, & they had infiltrated every crack. Now she lets herself in whenever she wants, only to spend all her time at the window. The pungent scent of her defensive spray permeates the house. What is she afraid of? I begin to suspect that those delicate underwings are really an airmail letter containing the last, unwary words of someone who perished in a house fire, the way she keeps unfolding & refolding them — two sheets of onionskin tucked against a small, bad heart.