Sacrifice To Science

A giant beetle lying on his back.
In Texas larger never have I seen.
His writhing legs. I’m fearful of attack.
His jaws might pinch my finger in between.

Back to abode, container to retrieve.
With flip-flop scooped into the Tupperware.
New bioethics that I must conceive.
A seal excluding any further air.

No cotton ball, my toilet paper wad,
absorbs this toxic liquid I possess.
The killing jar with beetle not quite dead.
My insect murder, guilty, I confess.

Not only my aesthetics to fulfill.
My kids, the ones I demonstrate the norms.
The values in them that I would instill.
To value life in all its many forms.

To take a life for art? Impossible!
Consider ethics of activities.
To satisfy what is insatiable:
our scientific curiosity.

Ella

The other day returning from the pool.
Upon the sidewalk where it was we walked.
The end of summer, going back to school.
About some random subjects that we talked.

Upon the ground a beetle had deceased.
I pointed out the largeness of his size.
Not quite as big as him I’d found before.
My Ella, teasing, gave me this reply:

“Why don’t you pick him up and save him, then
some further poetry that you can write?”
A hearty laugh was shared by all of us,
but no one’s laughter, harder, than was mine.

I knew that Ella did not disrespect.
I understood the teasing she intends.
The laughter shared, this way that we connect.
I knew their hearts, my love, they understand.