Isopod:
Life As A Pillbug

It’s not hard,
deadly simple to be a throwback.
I should know,
dead-ends have become a specialty
in my precincts.
Still I could at least assert that I am
a bit ahead,
his dead end also a dead beginning.
We share much,
though juggling fourteen legs would be
beyond me.
We two have such a talent for defense,
curving inward,
curling hopelessly into a gray seed
in a world of birds.