Ladybug

It's about arson.

      

Ladybug, ladybug, fly away home!

There was a wishing swing there

in the garden where petals fell like snow.

I know, even today, where the roses were

and the glass house of pots and lady bugs.

There was a wishing swing there�"

on it, I was weightless, swimming among clouds.

He grasped at things like a madman, thinking the world would end.

Thinking like a madman, he grasped at the world’s end. Things

like rusty cars, stacks of old tires and two-by-fours

in the garden where petals fell like snow.

 

Your house is on fire!

Soon the broken things crowded out the flowers�"

petals unfurling in black smoke,

the toxic air sifting through skeletal branches.

I know, even today, where the roses were

along the narrow pathways in a sea of old tires,

among islands of rotting two-by-fours,

and rusty cars floating like oil tankers.

 

Your children shall burn!

A madman thought he grasped the world.

Things end like the world.

Things grasped a madman like thoughts. He ended.

Where were the roses? Even today I know

ashes fell like snow in the garden where

a wishing swing was. There, there, Ladybug.

 

Author's Note

Italics are from the nursery rhyme.

Reviews

[wolfshrew]

mm, my mind is swimming in this.

[LJW]

Beautifully wrought.