“You’re beautiful,”
whispers the entomologist to the monarch
as he presses a pin into its wing.
he arranges its pose with care,
delicately penetrating to reveal a perfect form.
hands steadier than his breath
he brushes a finger against a wing,
knowing that he can do no more harm than death.
an orange and black spectacle;
fragile, temporary thing made eternal on a shelf
denied its right to return its body to nature
so that mankind may understand the nature of itself.
a corpse,
on a mantle of corpses,
standing in a house of corpses
built on the land of corpses
to indulge those who remain.
he closes the case,
solving the butterfly.
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