Madeline Allen

Click Bug

The first night I touched Sarah she flung her arms wide
and I fell into them like relief before she pulled
the frantic, spasming thing from my hair. We held
it in our palms to watch, entranced, as it flipped 

with a faint and desperate popping again
and again until our wonder waned. Then, we threw
it out the window and did what we’d come together
to do. When her brother died the way I tried to 

we got high to the sound of her mother crying
over a box of high school trophies, old T-shirts.
We didn’t talk about it, and when she could,
Sarah moved to Seattle and didn’t come back. 

So who can I tell how this morning, when I opened
the shower curtain and found the brown body there,
wings unsheathed on the grout, I picked the bug up
and placed what was left of it on the stoop. 

Forgiveness more than miracle. Then I put my head
in my hands for every small thing we won’t become.

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Madeline Allen studies creative writing at Allegheny College. You can find her work in Biscuit Hill and forthcoming from The Oakland Arts Review. When not writing, she enjoys running and watching horror movies.