/robert krut

Attempted Astronomy on the Entomology Excursion

It is my first day outside and I will wear a suit. I adjust my tie in the bathroom mirror only to notice my thumbnail twitching until it shakes free as the birthing wings of a beetle.

The half-moon insect now crawls into the faucet before me. I move my gaze to the window where a breeze makes the street’s air gravity-less, clearing away pollen. I expect to see a parade

but there is no one, no one, and in the reflection, my hair is long, and in the reflection, my beard is to my chest. My hands are covered in dirt.

I turn on the water but it releases a spray of miniscule flying insects— beetles with the eyes of a fly, spiders with wings of a dragonfly, small praying mantis with centipede legs—

and they circle my head, a clueless Saturn as I call outside to no one and stand in place like the dying planet I am.

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Robert Krut is the author of three books: The Now Dark Sky, Setting Us All on Fire (SUNY/Codhill Press, 2019), which received the Codhill Poetry Award; This Is the Ocean (Bona Fide Books, 2013), which was awarded the Lanitis Poetry Prize; and The Spider Sermons (BlazeVox, 2009). His work has appeared in numerous journals, including Gulf Coast, The Cimarron Review, Blackbird, Passages North, and many more. Additional information can be found at http://www.robert-krut.com/.