She sees a ladybug
crawling across her
bedroom windowsill.
An urge to crush it comes over her.
To make a mini mortar and pestle matter
of red and yellow guts.
The exact moment she decides to spare the insect,
she realizes it is already dead—
and only reanimated by the periodic gusts
of her oscillating fan.

Paul Rousseau is a disabled writer from Minnesota. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Wigleaf, Catapult,  Roxane Gay’s The Audacity, X-R-A-Y, and JMWW.