Beetle 

My wife she found this beetle in the pottery washer basket

We never found what kind it was because we couldn’t ask it

It was rather black and shiny with a finely ribbed abdomen

It wasn’t from a circus, had no markings from a showman.

 

It hadn’t any thing to say, there was no tale around it

was dark rotund and silent and the washer must have drownd it.

It was however nice and clean, its posture fairly steady.

We didn’t think to squash it, it seemed dead enough already

 

We left it on the draining board to wait till we had space

to find the proper litrature and put it in its place.

We hadn’t got the proper books – no things to give us hope

it seemed quite large and nasty underneath the microscope….

 

To diagnose these properly you need to find their gender

- examining the naughty bits and sections rather tender.

We didn’t do an autopsy, we didn’t care to cut it.

So then it must have crept away, it went from where we put it

 

I’ll only tell you one more thing and cease to bend your lug-hole .

We really would have kept it but it went off down the plughole…