This butterfly bullshit sure escapes me.
I should have known when my mutant
superpowers didn’t kick in at puberty.
(Charles Xavier, please take me with you!)
So when I saw those houseflies mating
in the missionary position, I looked away
in shame. Where had they learned it? If
anybody asked, would they name me?
(I’ve really done nothing, nothing at all.)
Still and regardless, change inches along.
Each morning helps test the hypothesis,
as the old clothes no longer fit loosely.
Leveraging myself into decade-old suits
becomes an exercise in stuffing turducken
into packets of caul fat, a gourmet strain.
Writhing forty years and one fortnight,
this middle-aged larva peers in the mirror
with eyebrow dander and stretch marks,
with some slight sense of affable defeat,
seeing signs of further scattered molting
instead of flinty chrysalis crystallization.
But there is time left to animate, to strike
from the mantis pose, a snapdragon monk
ready to rally temple forces fiery in flight.