First Place: Ladybugs by Andrew Jarvis

She reaches into their red, becoming

a body of them, spotted and shining

in leaves at school, her dawn of dissection,

eating summer’s afterlife in fall, fresh,

with antenna, elytra, eyes, thorax:

biology lesson before the bell, learning

how insects morph in color’s masquerade,

caught, in a story for class, shown, and told.

Susan’s Comments:

This poem captures the wonder of discovery in a child’s school days, with the season’s change as the backdrop. 

Andrew’s Bio

Andrew Jarvis is the author of The Strait, Landslide, and Blood Moon. His poems have appeared in Cottonwood, Measure, Valparaiso Poetry Review, and others. He holds high honors from the Nautilus, INDIE Book of the Year, and NextGen Indie Book Awards. Andrew holds an M.A. in Writing from Johns Hopkins University and lives in Orlando, Florida.