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Grasshoppers
Paul Willis

Last night, a warm fall night, a pair of grasshoppers
flew from the deck into our kitchen, attaching
themselves to the white tile on the wall.

One was a bright green, the other smaller,
a mottled brown—male and female
if grasshoppers are anything like birds.

Or could they have been of different species?
Sometimes that is what the sexes seem.
One by one, I captured them in a pale plastic

drinking glass, where they hopped and jittered
against my palm—and tossed them back
into the dark, where they had no color at all.

—
Paul Willis has published seven poetry collections, the most recent of which is Somewhere to Follow (Slant Books, 2021). Individual poems have appeared in Poetry, Ascent, Christian Century, and the Best American Poetry series. He lives with his wife, Sharon, near the old mission in Santa Barbara, California.

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