Goddess of the Underworld

A millipede with 1,300 legs has been found in Australia. It's a new record by far. —NPR

We look for life on Mars, yet deep below
our feet she’d crept unseen, a creature blessed
with far more legs than any life we know:
thirteen hundred plus! With a great zest
for fungi, she was the world’s cellar-dweller,
ginormously antennaed, lacking eyes—
a tendril. Her recycling skills were stellar
(although she wasn’t looking for a prize!).
Earth’s only millipede uniquely “milli,”
she was the slenderest and longest weed
that we had ever hauled up willy-nilly.
We’ve christened her “Persephone.” Indeed,
although she led a life of utter gloom,
our little cousin helped the flowers bloom.

(Appeared in The New Verse News.)