AN ACT OF SUPRESSION

(for William Wantling)

Dragging a sorry-ass body to the studio
riddled with pain
I see there up ahead a Yellow Tiger-Swallowtail
flopping around on the pavement
bizarrely
like something convulsing
or someone improvising
or a body working through a choreography.

I know this isn’t normal
I am intimate with this poet-butterfly – it has made me aware
as I bend down and unfold the massive flopping wings
I see there the Bald-faced Hornet
beautiful and black terrible and white
clutching the body with its
desperate and powerful and elegant embrace
locked in the same brutal struggle,

And I know this
never intervene
don’t do it
don’t
who knows which animal is more rare?
who knows what is beauty really and what is life
and what is death?

but I can’t help it
I am exhausted and riddled with pain
I pry them apart

and feel better
watching them fly off
in opposed direction.