Sally Toner

My Mothers Are Ladybugs

Carnivorous guardian angels slip
through window cracks in search of
gnats or half empty 
glasses of juice.

Their razor mouths chew
the dust of fitful sleep.  
When I wake,
my mind is neater for it.

They swarm around the bed
post and under pillows—bold 
soldiers, red, orange, black
caught in my doze.

I waste my buzzing days stuck 
in the nectar of grave possibility.  
I hum to the raindrops 
of a music box.

a silver beetle, “Ladybug, lady
bug, will you be mine?” It plays
its lullaby, “You are my sunshine, my 
only sunshine.”

The drizzle slows and 
slows until the sound winds
down. Then a thousand bubble 
wings form a shield around my rest.

I twine two spiky arms around
my own round middle, roll my bug self 
over, and fall back under 
it all.

Copyright 2024 by Sally Huggins Toner

Sally Toner (she/her)is a writer and high school English teacher who has lived in the Washington, D.C. area for over 25 years. She is a Pushcart nominee whose poetry, fiction, and non-fiction have appeared in Northern Virginia Magazine, Gargoyle Magazine, Watershed Review, and other publications.   Her first chapbook, Anansi and Friends, from Finishing Line Press, is a mixed genre work focusing on diagnosis, treatment, and recovery from breast cancer. She is presently completing an MFA at the University of Georgia in narrative nonfiction. A recent empty nester with two grown daughters, she lives in Reston, Virginia with her husband. You can find her at sallytoner.com, salliemander70 on Instagram, and on X at @SallyToner

30 for 30 is sponsored by Potomac Review