A Year Drowning in Ladybugs

Aphids are laying eggs
underneath my fingernails.

I’m looking for ladybugs
to eat them all up, fatted
so I can rest without running
from a thorny thorax in another
sweat-dipped nightmare.

I seek your absence when I wake,
but settle for a nest in leftover autumn
in a vain hope for hibernation,

still wishing you’d join me
beneath my wintery blanket
where we’d sleep
our anxiety away
or awake in a world
laden with ladybugs.