Beetle Kill

Here, the lodgepole pine
die with silent dignity:
knights succumbing
to a war of attrition
after decades holding this range;
now too long weathered bronze
by a dark, six-legged sun,
and bludgeoned a thousand times,
they bleed a fungus-blue
from their hollow ribs
and watch it dry
down their crusted toes.

Too exhausted to fight,
they remove their green chain-mail,
letting the needles drop,
and face the winter exposed.
Should they survive the cold,
these stoics will surely burn
in the dry-ice heat of summer,
and no doubt,
they’ll leave their last words
to someone else.

By Aden Thomas

Biography:

Aden Thomas grew up in the blue collar communities of central Wyoming. His work has appeared in The Kentucky Review, The Inflectionist Review, and Third Wednesday. He now lives north of Denver, Colorado.