Kent Leatham
Many earwig species display maternal care, which is uncommon among insects. Female earwigs may care for their eggs, and even after they have hatched as nymphs will continue to watch over offspring until their second molt.
—B. K. Tyagi and Vijay Veer, Entomology in the Doon Valley
Misdirection.
Look over here.
Watch the eyes,
not the other end.
The first thing I lost was so small
she doesn't even remember it.
Surely, I ask, she glimpsed it at least
once before they threw it out?
Perhaps, I suggest, she could describe
others she's seen to compare with it?
But
no.
It made no mark on her.
Left no scar for her.
Had no claim to her.
Was no part of her.
She can't forget
what she never knew.
I can't forget
its absence each day.
A harmless procedure for a baby, they say.
Just a little pinch.
Like losing someone
else's name.