Bug Poem by robert dickerson

There's a bug in my PC.
I'm not lying
or seeing things-
an actual, green
dewlap lacewing earwig:
two gems joined by a bead
eye chips tinier than Cartier could ever dream.

Opting the inner life
he flows easily between
pixel and boot
modem and memory
on a schuss of circuitry
leisurely paddling the bark of himself
taking it all in, eating God knows what.

Now and again
on certain damp
nights he can be seen
by the lamplight of the moonlight
on my side
cruising the screen
like a roving i-dot, or the cursor unchained.

I like to think we're friends
this lone, occasional
star in my sky
now that I know him no
floater, moat,
squint of the eye or any worser bug,
but, rather, a fellow seeker, my hoplite-twin

searching the barren face of cyberspace
quietly for his lost garden
as I skim this thin
indelible crust of days
over the reservoir of forever
alert for signs of life beneath the ice
losing more and more files the further I look.