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.

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A newfound species of millipede (Eumillipes Persephone) has more legs than any other creature on the planet—a mind-boggling 1,300 of them. The leggy critters live deep below Earth's surface and are the only known millipedes to live up to their name. Image credit: Paul E. Marek, Bruno A. Buzatto, William A. Shear, Jackson C. Means, Dennis G. Black, Mark S. Harvey, Juanita Rodriguez, Scientific Reports via LiveScience, December 16, 2021.

(Appeared in The New Verse News.)