The Monarch

Amazon bug --
you cannot kill them.
Tongue a coiled straw,
and feet tight-gripping claws;
if exo-skeletons could ripple
you would see its muscley grace.

Keeping vigil above
the cleaned cole slaw container
and twig,
I salute you, bug.
Rich Navajo brown,
your folded glory veined
and leopard-speckled black.
Raised from wormhood
on fuzzy, tender milkweed
(bitter to the bird's mouth)
you will rule the air
unafraid.

From worm, you fleshed into
a sleek eater, tiger striped.
Kabuki mask-head sliding
back and forth,
spinning footholds
devouring leaves
as you moved your bulk,
your suction feet,
up the sensual stem . . .

Until you stopped.
Spun a silk base, hung a J.
Until you burst your fatness
into something new.
You spent the awkward age
wisely immobile.
A pupae hanging lightly
from my twig.
Pubescence turned a temple
of exquisite jade.
Gold-flecked. Still.
Patient.

When once again
you bore yourself
all wet and scraggly,
you hung from the chrysalis
hull, and dripped
and pumped
the life-blood into
your expanding wings.

And now,
deft, rolling head
hard, tufted knot
of thorax
soft, ribbed abdomen
and flexing,
spreading palms,
now you are perfect and virile.
Like Monarch X, tagged,
triumphant, who flew from Canada
down across the States,
you must begin your trek
navigate the Americas
and weather the Mexican snow.

High southern mountains
call to you,
trees blanketed, rustling
with your own kind.
In your eyes I am now
sixty swirling children
and you have outgrown me.

When you are gone
I will make do
with potato bugs
centipedes, and beetles
who go stiff, legs in the air
their first hour in a jar.
And I will long
for my most successful relationship
and for next year's milkweed,
next year's eggs.