Tomato Menace and Floral Rabbit,  Jury St. Judge

     

 

 

     Nothing’s a secret once you know about it. The jewel beetles became a regularity in the kitchen. The first was the color of a geode’s guts, translucent purple. It sipped from the lavender-licorice tea you left out. You’d forgotten about your tea while on the phone with your cousin, when you raced off to look up how to legally change your name (Pallas or Mo?). The beetle met you under the wink of night. Once your pulse slowed from canary levels, the beetle let you pet it. With two fingers. It was warm, as if you had just released it from cupped palms.

 

 

     You learned not to crack the window—the beetles didn’t need help, thank you very much—and not to make Irish tea without milk. One lapis lazuli beetle resented that. Onyx, emerald, opal, ruby, aquamarine. Golden legs and veined wings, injected with ichor. Otherworldly. The geode beetle liked the name Pallas for you, but you let it keep the name. You chose Mo for yourself, only you changed your mind later and didn’t change it after all. At night, under the hum of your kitchen lights, pincers clicked against ceramic, tiny toasts to old friends.