The Math of Bugs and Boys
a poem about the adventures of curious boy of six
.
Little boy of six, collected flowers
and caterpillars and brought them home, blunt
fingers added water to flowers and
lettuce to kidnapped bugs, two aliens
.
He danced around them with peace offerings,
set them afloat in bubble bath water,
and served them tea in miniature fittings,
before laying them to sleep in green bedding
.
He promised them jungles and wild tigers,
pirates on tall ships and hidden treasures,
flight between clouds and over volcano's,
if they stayed at home while he went to school
.
Told friends of two aliens eating cup
cakes and drinking peppermint tea, lacking
manners but friendlier than sulky worms
confused by the idea of up or down
.
Homework took all three, sweating over math
that asked what four beads added to three trees
was, but he had no problem counting legs
of bugs, candy sticks, or paper money
.
A new day and the aliens had gone
and flowers folded with heads touching toes,
falling the wrong side of time, mulched and mixed
the last petals into garden, reborn
.
He took leave and returned with ladybugs
counting the dots of the little red tanks
fighting for possession of broccoli
mounds, in aa brave new vegetable world
.
