Popillia japonica

Beth McDermott

A mere month they lived above soil
as the social versions of their former
selves: compact houses composed 

of green television screens and 
wood laminate floors. Imagine after
pupating, a thoughtless orgy leaving 

only a lace-like skeleton of veins.
Who wouldn’t risk rubber gloves 
and drowning in suds after living like 

monks swaddled in calf vellum, a sole 
unprotected bulb careful to infringe
upon larval instars one, two, and three. 

The Science

The Popillia japonica spends about ten months of its one-year life cycle as a grub underground. For about four to six weeks in the spring, it pupates closer to the surface of the soil. In June or July, the adult beetle emerges and spends the remaining 30-45 days of its lifespan eating, mating, and laying eggs. During its brief adult life, the beetles’ feeding destroys the visual appearance of foliage and flowers. Plants that aren’t healthy or established may not survive damage from the beetles. After spending so much time maturing underground, the Popillia japonica fails to integrate with its environment. 

The Poet

Beth McDermott is a writer in the southwest suburbs of Chicago. Her chapbook, How to Leave a Farmhouse, was published by Porkbelly Press. She teaches writing and literature courses at the University of St. Francis in Joliet, IL. Recent poetry, reviews, and criticism appear in Kenyon Review Online, Tupelo Quarterly, and The Trumpeter. Essays and reviews about art and ecology can be found in After the Art, American Book Review, the Spoon River Poetry Review blog and Kudzu House Quarterly, where she was also Poetry Editor.

Next poem: Quince by Hilary Sideris