No, it’s not a crumb that’s sprouted legs
but I can’t tell until I bring my face

up to its brown and white stripes.
This mini-bead shuffling across my table

is what Google calls – oh no – a carpet beetle, not
the ladybug I hoped for, prayed for, bringer

of good things. I’m on alert for a red pepper
pearl shell with solemn black spots, sacred

scarab sister for my restoration mission. I’d love
to greet her at the center of this dining wheel

where a lit candle holds court. But no, I’ve this
traveler – a wilted bouquet’s renegade.

What if her tribe erupts into legions that gorge
upon my meager silk and cotton garden?

M. Nasorri Pavone has appeared in The Cortland Review, River Styx, New Letters, Harpur Palate, The Midwest Quarterly, DMQ Review, La Fovea, Slant, Roanoke Review, Bluestem, Stirring, Chaparral, Green Hills Literary Lantern, Quiddity, Confrontation, Sycamore Review, Pirene’s Fountain, Tule Review, Cura, Rise Up Review, The Citron Review, The Broadkill Review and elsewhere with one in the current Rhino and others upcoming in Borderlands and Innisfree.

She is a graduate of the University of California at Los Angeles and lives in Venice, California.