The Insect Elite

This year’s cicadas threaten to emerge

Humongously. If you stand too close by,

Expect a drenching when they get the urge—

It won’t be droplets falling from your sky.

No human but a scientist could think

Success means getting peed on as you cry,

“Eureka! I have found the missing link

Connecting giant beasts to lesser fry:

These insects have evolved to take a leak

Efficiently in carefree spurts, despite

Low sustenance from sap and small physique

Implying they should pee in droplets” … Might

Their spurting indicate they want to be

Elite?—They’re quite the jet set when they pee!

 

Mike Mesterton-Gibbons is a Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at Florida State University who has returned to live in his native England. His acrostic sonnets have appeared in Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Better Than Starbucks, The Creativity Webzine, Current Conservation, the Ekphrastic Review, Grand Little Things, Light, Lighten Up Online, MONO, the New Verse News, Oddball Magazine, Rat’s Ass Review, the Satirist, the Washington Post and WestWard Quarterly. The poem was prompted by two NPR stories, “Scientists studied how cicadas pee. Their insights could shed light on fluid dynamics” and “Why Cicadas Power Spray Their Pee.”