Salvation

We would send off for ladybird eggs,
tiny, many and orange in a plastic tub.
Out would hatch dots that grew, shed,
grew, shed, grew spikes, ate siblings,
cocooned, emerged orange and wet.
We let them go in the back garden.
The empty tub would sit atop the piano.
I would squint at it for any last life.

We pulled a dragonfly from a spider.
I sat hours with its cold helicopter form.
The poison or shock had long done it,
but I wanted to be a hero, like in books
about kids who raised and saved pets,
were surrounded by fur and gratitude.
Tough shells, droning wings, disinterest
were more what I was designed to love.