by Allison Camp Ode to the corpse “The Dermestid Beetle, sometimes referred to as a carpet or skin beetle, belongs to the family Dermesidate. This beetle species feeds on dry-moist animal material, ensuring that decaying and dead flesh is recycled. Invariably these beetles will show up at a carcass to aid in decomposition…” -Skull Taxidermy My dear, cold dead damp rotting at roadside, a generous splay. Your sweet stench lures me. Intoxicating cadaverine and putrescine, pungent perfume which I fancy ambergris envies. My probing mouth lovingly caresses each metacarpal, vertebral arch. No pulp evades my insatiable maw. My wormy form burrows under your fur in gluttonous consumption. A grotesque Hungry Caterpillar. Your crevices are scraped clean in my wake, elegant bones gleam white. Now, you are gone my decomposing darling. I will hide -- secret, sealed, corporeal melt, dream of decay. The circularity is not lost on me. Jumbled soup congeals, my form recombines, your muscle now mine. Spotted elytra and wings unfurl. I fly to find you again. Roadkill
more like murder via high-speed habitat intrusion more like killer road more like vehicular slaughter more like we kill anything that gets in our way more like paved graveyard more like corpse corridor more like a gruesome museum of local wildlife – mangled specimens only. Allison Camp (she/her) is a Washington State native now living and working in North Carolina. She is a scientist by training and has a deep affinity for biology and the fascinating details that abound in nature. Connect with her on Substack: https://allisoncamp.substack.com/ or Instagram: @eclectic.curiosity.
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