Melolontha melolontha

Suzanna Fitzpatrick

We’ve chafers
in the chimney 

maybugs
haunting June.

They drop
– dusty, gesticulating –

into our startled dusk
and expire. 

Online, I find
they live a month

are immortalised
in a Polish tongue-twister

can be poached in stock
for a fine soup.

The Science

The common cockchafer, or maybug, is harmless, but has long been unpopular for eating crops. The species was taken to court in 13th Century Avignon and was almost wiped out by pesticides in the mid-20th Century but has since made a comeback. After hatching they spend around three years underground as grubs before pupating, but only live for six weeks as adult beetles. They have their evolutionary niche, and who are we to decide the worth of their brief existence? We only saw them once.

The Poet

Suzanna Fitzpatrick (she/her) is a bisexual poet with poems on Radio 4 and widely published in magazines and anthologies in the UK, US, Ireland and Canada. She has been Commended in the Hippocrates and Ginkgo Prizes, shortlisted for the Bridport Prize, longlisted for the National Poetry Competition, won third prize in the 2023 Shepton Snowdrops Competition, second prize in the 2016 Café Writers and 2010 Buxton Competitions, and won the 2014 Hamish Canham Prize. Pamphlets from Red Squirrel Press: Fledglings (2016), and Crippled (2025). She is studying for an MA in Writing Poetry with the Poetry School and Newcastle University.

Next poem: Midges by Liz Kendall