This ruby moves: it is a bug
in an empty shotgun shell.
The shell has served the bug as roof and rug.
I gauge it serves him well.
The bug wants more. He comes outdoors,
flaps his wings, flies to my book.
He says a sonnet only bores
a bug too small to look
across a large and ink-filled page.
I give him praise and drink.
I tell him poems are all the rage.
‘That can’t be true. I think,’
he says. ‘A single shotgun shell
costs more than any ode.’
He bugs off then – it’s just as well.
I’ve stepped on his abode.