At the Lepidopterist's House

Their colors only fly by day. I always found

them trembling on leaves as chrysalides, flitting

from phlox to foxglove with new wings, soundless

in the thrum of early summer. I was sitting

on a bench on Nevsky Prospect once, waiting

for life to get exciting, when a monarch

broke the dullness of an iron gate

and tore the afternoon apart. One art

is like another. I wrote my sentences to show

slow phosphorescent motes and caught

my net on beauty. There’s always more to know

about the world, the whirring light. Obsession taught

me patience, made me attentive to the shape

of thoraxes and microscopic veins, the bending

arc of stems. The killing jar is never where it ends.

Inside the glass, the vanished landscape

magnifies—its iridescent shades preserved in scales

that seldom fade in banishment or shame.

My ephemera are pinned, hanging from every wall,

though nothing really stays the same.

The house front goes; the once opulent rooms

brim with the ravenous gaze of travelers,

and I myself am just a traveler whose vision zooms

in on the tiny fibers of my coat. Stitches unravel.

I once remembered all their names: skippers and coppers,

allies and swallowtails. Their metamorphosis beguiles

me, and while I know the past will never stop her

badgering, I’ll rest awhile amid their glorious disguise.