Tried to lift a swallowtail butterfly out of
a thick web, out of leg and wing fragments.
I think they were parts of moths and flies.
All the truncations, all the leaf chips,
dirty gauze strands, Chinese silver ash spores.
Held my thumb knuckle out for it to walk on.
That hesitating, that erotic clinging, that
flexing and trembling. At a garage window.
I forgot my tools inside the truck,
my work shoes by the pedals.
It came out on one thread. The window
behind the web was blank. Leather
insoles held the stained shapes of
my feet, those white swallows
pointing their beaks
at the underworld, pointing
at the carnivorous, pointing
and clinging. I was trying to lift it
through the leg and wing fragments
past the dry torso of a wasp.
Wrist bones secured with wire
in documentaries, fragmented in
my head. Mass grave photojournalism,
as usual quotas waiting for us,
incidental naturalism of our malice
documentaries went through my
interior gauze and webs. I was trying
to be steady. My hand close to the foot
below the wing, close to the breath
jumping on the rim of dirty strands.
To the antennae that looked moist,
to the remarkable fetal expression,
I held out my thumb knuckle.
Doren Robbins
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/natural-history-anti-war-poem/
