The body of the lingerneedle is filled 
with hemolymph unconstricted except 
for a single dorsal vessel. A ventral 
diaphragm bathes the organs of the head,

undulations drawing the fluid back through 
tiny holes called ostia aided by the movement 
of a Napoleon within each abdominal segment 
pacing his Elba exile, muttering la Russie

la Russie as the snow squeaks beneath 
his boots. All through the night 
the temperature drops but no one 
knows where the lingerneedle goes.

Yet it emerges each spring like 
a baseball team. Gertrude Stein 
may have been referring to this when 
she wrote, A hurried heaving is a quartz

confinement, although what we normally think of 
as referring is brought into question by her work. 
A hive of white suching. At the time 
of her death, she owned many valuable

paintings renowned for ugliness. 
Gertrude Stein grew up in Oakland 
but an Oakland as we know it not. No 
plastic bags snagged in the trees. Semi-

automatics had yet to reach the fifth grade.
A person could stand in a field, naked 
and singing. Sure, there was blood but 
there were rags for wiping up the blood.

Deciduous trees, often confused by California 
dimes, just bloom whenthehellever like how 
people have sex in French movies. Here, 
during the cool evenings and hot mid-days,

the mild winters and resistive texts, 
the lingerneedle thrives. Upon the ruddy 
live oak leaves appears its first instar,
spit-like but changing shortly to a messy lace

erupting into many-legged, heavy-winged 
adults that want only to mate. Often in July, 
one finds them collapsed in the tub, unable 
to gain purchase on the porcelain that seems

to attract them mightily. It is best not 
to make everything a metaphor of one's own life 
but many have pressed themselves against cool 
and smooth, in love and doomed. Truly

the earth hurtles through the cosmos at 
an alarming rate. Recent research suggests 
a gummy discharge of the mating pair

has promise as an anti-coagulant. Please, 
more money is needed. The sun sets. The air 
turns chilly and full of jasmine.