Year of the Beetle In the aftermath, even the detour was boarded up with screws, and we were quarantined in church closets to scratch our new names on burlap squares with chalk. Mark over mark over mark. I was Coleoptera now, iridescent when wet, not to be confused with my sister, Cleopatra, the lisper, who tucked her waist-length hair into her gray wool trousers. Everywhere we looked, dirigibles blotted out the sky, and we dreamed of a different war, perhaps one begun with needles. Once out, we stuffed our mouths with what we could: shreds of gauze, mushroom stalks, muddy envelopes, and at night, the daring among us, ventured out to the air crash to pull jade bracelets off charred wrists. The rest of us scavenged differently. A garter belt that had fallen from the sky, antennae. Elsewhere, a bit of red thread, a teacup covered in tar. We didn't know what for. We moved with our arms outstretched and gathered up whatever looked alive. *Published in Indiana Review