Francesca Beard
Baby Scorpion
The man put a log on the fire to keep his sweetheart warm.
Out of the bark crawled a baby scorpion.
Long as her little toe, shiny like her hair,
It ran faster than fire, along the burning wood.
‘It’s a black snowflake’, she said
and felt pity for its strange symmetry.
It was a knight in black armour on his tiny black charger,
galloping through a forest of red thorn.
It would not step out onto the bridge of kindling,
Nor would it tuck in the curved lance of its spine.
It would not be saved.
The baby scorpion tumbled off into the ash.
He said “We’ll never find it”.
Their rescue was failing.
She thought of their warm bed with its soft dark corners.
She thought of all the insects in the garden.
When it grows up, it will not be small, she thought.
When it grows up, it will be an ugly, dangerous thing.
“Find it and kill it. Make sure it’s dead.” she said to her lover.
He had green eyes and white teeth.
He found it and killed it.
‘Look – it’s dead now.”
She went to look at a smudge on the stone.
Out of the stain rose a ghost,
Shaped like a scorpion, but ill-defined.
The girl was afraid. She said -
“I am young and beautiful among my own kind”.
I will not harm you unless frightened.
If there is no alternative I will kill myself.
I do not want death forced upon me.
I will come to meet it in all my wildness”.
Then she closed her eyes as if to disappear.
The ghost scorpion was torn between pity and loathing.
It was expedient.
It dispatched the girl swiftly and afterwards her lover.
Left alone, the fire consumed itself and died.
