Insects in Amber

We are as insects trapped in amber
Last alive in the Eocene,
Which makes us very old,
Moths perhaps.
Our resinous coffins shaped, shined, and fondled
By Cro-Magnon and Baltic men and women
Who burn with wonder
That we were and are and aren’t.

I don’t want to be a bug in amber I cried
And it is hardly being a bug that troubles me
It is being stuck in this terminal goo forever
A prison
A shiver of fear
The terrifying reality of sticky feathers.

I love the pattern on my wings
my dusty pigmented scales
that evoke
female pheromones
and pheromone receptors
sensory neurons
olfactory sensilla
male antennae.

I did not intend this amber fate
He says, as they rest atop one another
atop the branch
on which they are delirious and invisible.

Oh blessed entomology
What is possible
What is true
There is me
And there is you.