Crawling out of pores of the earth,
we arise like miniature helicopters,
coated trees, walls, lawns,

drowned out the sun with our humming.
We consumed flowers,
dropped into soup bowls,

stuck to the linens hung out to dry.
Men stepped on us,
we stuck to their shoes,

cars squashed us under their wheels.
They beat us with shovels,
swept us with brooms,

children dissected us with toothpicks.
But every day we came,
more and more, our bodies

bombarding windshields, windows,
clogging up the gutters,
littering the pavement with our shells.

Wings that still beat in the absence of energy,
crisp kernels of legs and abdomen,
corpses desiccating in the heat.

In a week we are gone.
As nonchalant in death as we are in life,
we crave no funeral, feel no mourning,
silence to us is as beautiful as noise.