Patricia Davis-Muffett

America, 2025

On Etna, nothing grows. A moonscape
of lava flows, black scree. Rocks in my boot,
dark dust churning, threatening my eyes.
Still, we are not the only living things at 10,000 feet.
Dotting endless grey-black rock face,
the seven-spotted ladybug, apex predator
of thin air, making her way to her next meal.

Lift a rock and find dozens huddled,
communing despite the hostile landscape,
reminiscing about another time, another place,
when warmth came more easily, when
the color green still existed. Something
from nothing—basking in relative safety
until the next eruption makes its choice,
flows hot and scorches to its own design.

We will live or die, not as the drunken bumblebee,
flown too high for its own good, stumbling
for lack of oxygen, but as our own beetle selves,
quietly awaiting apocalypse, feasting on aphids together.

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Patricia Davis-Muffett (she/her) holds an MFA from the University of Minnesota. Her chapbook, Alchemy of Yeast and Tears, was published in 2023. Her work has won honors including the 2024 Erskine J Poetry Prize from Smartish Pace, Best of the Net and Pushcart nominations, and appears or is forthcoming in Best American Poetry, Best New Poets and other publications. www.patriciadavismuffett.com.